TombRaider
by Xenophile9
Summary: This will probably be the most elaborate fan fiction you will ever read...
1. Prologue: Spirit Vision

"_I will not worship_

_Your deity_

_There is no place in your religion for me_

_Slaves to the vision of a dying world_

_I malign_

_One with the Universe_

_One star will shine._

"_Who will be chosen?_

_Not one will know_

_The path to the perfect way, it is slow_

_All needs of human thoughtlessness _

_I resign_

_I pray to the alien_

_And we align._

"_Greater understanding isn't really hard to find_

_Never will you see unless you open up your mind_

_Religious misdirection washes out reality_

_Tear down the facade and see into infinity_..."

**--Sanctuary.**

**PROLOGUE:** **"**Spirit Vision.**"**

The dusky red of the desert sands shimmered dimly in the outer fringes of Bean's truck's headlamps.

Only, it wasn't his truck. It was his father's truck.

The road ahead was long, straight, and flat. Uneventful. It was a country hardball road winding between interspersed tracts of irrigated fields and desolate New Mexican desert. The beat up '38 Ford was hardened now, trusted, crusted with age. Bean let his foot hang long on the gas peddle; let the needle on the speedometer climb and climb...

**_25, 30, 35_. . .**

There was a song singing itself in his mind. One of those singularly mindless songs he'd catch himself humming in the fields every now and again. One of the songs he'd picked up from the other field hands. The other Navajos. It was one of the songs he knew they had heard from the radio in White Farmer's house: One of those brassy, annoying, songs that always reminded him of the kind of thinking that made people believe it was okay to own the land. Okay to believe that other people are beneath you. Okay to think God loves you better than everyone else.

Bean had spent a lot of time thinking about God today. He wondered what the White Farmer's Christian God might have been thinking watching His faithful White Farmer pacing the fields, watching his Navajo workers working. Not helping them to pluck his harvest, no; just counting his profits as they came reaping in. Did God care that the White Farmer's workers were practically starving on what he paid them for all their labor? Or to God, was it just like it was to the White Farmer: simply their lot?

_Our lot_, he thought, correcting himself.

There hadn't been anger or spite in those meditations, even after the Farmer noticed him falling behind once or twice and snapped him back to reality (_"keep up, boy, you've got to keep up if want to keep this job."_). He just wondered what God thought about it all. Was God happy with this arrangement? Was He disappointed? If so, with whom?

His Navajo upbringing taught him to be suspicious of this kind of thinking. Who had the right to question the Mind of God? To even _presume_ to guess how God feels about your tiny little point of view was immodesty. The Navajos didn't really even talk about God. They sometimes talked about the Great Spirit, but that wasn't the same idea. Not really. The Navajo saw the Spirit of life in everything. They only needed to know they were in their "place" in the natural way of things to be happy.

But the White Man--he seemed to have some need to be _better_ than nature--to prove again and again that he owned nature and nature couldn't own him. The White Man's religion taught him that God created him in His own Holy image. So, White Men were all just little gods running around loose in the world. It explained some things, certainly. Bean mused silently over the thought that it seemed more likely that the White Man had created his 'god' in his own conceited image. But what was better? To lay down like the Navajo, or think you are gods yourselves and do what the White Man does?

_**40 mph, 45, 50. . .**_

But how was anyone to know? Was it really as immodest as his father said it was to spend his time wondering about this stuff? Was it really right to just accept what the Tribe told him about his natural place in things? Bean had great difficulty accepting the Tribe's views. If the natural order was so obvious to everyone but him, how come the White Men didn't see it? And if the Tribe is so right, how come it's the 'White Farmers' of the world who are _running_ the world? If the Spirit is so irresistible, then how come the Indians slave everyday forever and die while White Farmers listen to that goddamned radio and drink lemonade?

Bean was no revolutionary, but he wanted to understand. A year before, when he was seventeen, He had visited the White Farmer's church, looking for God in there. He didn't see God in there. He didn't see anything but what he had so often seen in the fields: That the 'god' these people were worshipping was really the one they were inventing for themselves. He heard the pastor making up comfortable, happy stories that made it sound like their lives were just what God wants from them--as though telling them challenging stories wouldn't be a realistic way to preach. Bean agreed, it wouldn't be realistic. And neither are medicine bags and animal spirits.

His father called him 'faithless.' At least he hadn't called him 'godless'.

That would have made too much sense.

_**55mph, 60. . .**_

Today would be the last day he would come home from work.

He decided it. Decided it absolutely.

_**65. . .**_

Tonight, he meant it. He wasn't coming home.

Just as he had every single night since he had turned eighteen, and realized that there was nowhere for a Navajo kid to go in New Mexico that wasn't just picking beans under some White Man's nose, listening to old tribal songs mixed with at least one worker's attempt to hum Benny Goodman. Where was God in all of this?

He was going to find God.

He was going to meet Him.

To touch Him.

Once and for all, he would learn the _Truth_.

Tonight, like every night, he pushed the ramshackle Ford past 70 miles-per-hour on the longest, straightest, desert stretch of road he could find, so he could listen for the Voice of the Spirit, pounding in his heart, or singing in his ears. Tonight, like every night, he was going to go home enlightened, or he was not coming home at all. It wasn't a prayer that Bean's mind called out into the red, desert twilight; it was a puppy-dog yelp of surrender.

Tonight, like every other night; tonight, like every other night...

_**70. . .**_

But tonight--_un_like every other night--he was really going to get his wish.

A light flooded over him--_through_ him--so suddenly, so completely, that he barely had time to release the gas pedal and hit the breaks before he was so thoroughly swept away from himself and into that _some-other-place_, so distant from his body, that he nearly careened the Ford into the soft, sandy, truck-rolling, metal-crunching shoulder of the hardball. The light (_where was it coming from?_) was terrifyingly near (_overhead?_), and it came with a siren scream that was almost like sound (_in his head?_). Its wake shook and nearly over-turned his skidding truck. His tires' squealing protest put the hairs on the back of neck on end (_or was it something else too? Something prickly all over him?_ _Hot?_). His gut tightened until he heaved up a dry, horrified moan through a parched throat, and he tightly hugged the wheel with of his both arms.

The truck tires, seemingly endlessly, shrieked and shrieked and shrieked--making up for the strangely absent sound of Bean's screams, which had been lost somewhere between his heart and his mouth. The truck faced sideways in the road and finally stopped; long black trails of rubber tread left to glisten in the red desert dusk behind it.

Bean gasped--the first sound in his ears since the "sound" of the thing itself and his truck's squealing tires. Bean all but threw himself from the cab to the pavement, and he span about; searching the near horizon. But he didn't need search long. It was still close; moving down and away from him, into the open desert expanse.

Was that the sound he'd heard in his dreams?

_Was that really the Voice?_

Bean looked long after the thing, watching it, fearing it might elude him in the dark desert twilight. But he needn't fear. Its Voice was on the very winds, its warmth was still lingering in his heart: A heart so cool for so long that it knew this Warmth well and could properly welcome it when it was felt!

Bean climbed quickly back into the truck and started the engine, driving off of the road and across the parched desert sands, going straightaway and without hesitation after his one life-long dream, his immodest prayer--_answered_.

He drove away, speeding, bouncing--blessedly mindless now--chasing after the Voice of God.

To get across the road, Bean had maneuvered around an ill-placed highway sign. That sign had read:

**ROSWELL, NM **

**75 MILES.**


	2. Chapter One: Plan C

"_I never bared my emotions_

_My passion always strong_

_I never lost my devotion_

_But somewhere fate went wrong. . ._

"_You tell me I'm wrong_

_I'm risking my life_

_Still, I have nothing in return_

_I show you my hands_

_You don't see the scars_

_Maybe you'll leave me here to burn._

"_What if the rest of the world_

_Was hopelessly drowning in vain?_

_Where would our self-pity run?_

_Suddenly everyone cares."_

**--Dream Theater.**

**CHAPTER ONE:** **"**Plan-C.**"**

After a bound, the graceful young woman flew from the carpeted mat and up into the air, her body coasting like a javelin through a gentle and definite trajectory. She was in perfect form. When she landed, she was solid and resolute: Though her entire body jostled with the impact, she didn't let her balance slip even an inch. She whipped, then, into a triumphant pose (arms above her head, a beaming smile) that was so sculpted and flawless that she seemed, though alive, to be the very photograph that would soon grace the covers of the newspapers and magazines whose photographers were even then crowding around her, snapping and flashing away.

The young woman was twenty years old, had an immaculate figure, and long blond hair tied in a tight bun behind her head. Though she was arguably too well-endowed in the bust to be a gymnast, she carried herself as though her body were nothing but muscle and tone. Her eyes were sharp and clear, projecting a fierce charisma that stunned onlookers, even through her smile. Though a more demure presence might have served the occasion better, she let her own brilliant fierceness shine through instead. Her musical accompaniment, a selection of fast, pounding techno rhythms, finished instantly upon a crescendo and vanished in an echo, replaced by the roar of the applause--already started--and the announcer's voice over the loud speakers:

"_Ladies and gentlemen, Lara Croft!_"

Lara turned toward the crowd, breaking her pose--but professionally, robotically--beaming her smile before herself like a search-beacon through the audience, blinding the thousands with her light. They jumped to their feet as she regarded them, and she bowed to them--once, and then twice.

"_Lara Croft, ladies and gentlemen, Lara Croft!_"

The standing ovation continued long after Lara herself had turned away from them.

Lara received a towel from her assistant, Christine Palaos, and as she left the tumbling floor, the applause only begrudgingly softened. She could still hear it echoing, following her through the passage towards her locker room, even well after she was out of view.

Behind her, the announcer cried:

"_Thank you for attending the Seventh Annual Puerto Montt Gymnastics Invitational!_"

Away from the crowds and now in private--apart from her assistant--Lara's smile faded abruptly and turned into a self-deprecating frown.

"You were beautiful out there!" said her assistant, an American. "Do you hear those people?"

Lara regarded her coolly.

"Didn't you see my third landing, Christine?" she asked, the pride behind her high-bred British accent bitterly complementing the ire in her voice. "My foot was more than five inches off."

"Didn't see it."

"It threw off the whole routine."

"I guarantee you nobody out _there_ noticed," Christine assured her.

"I had it fucking perfect in last week's practice," she quietly cursed herself, giving up the hope she might hear her rightly-deserved disapproval from anyone else.

Christine almost said something but didn't, frowning. They'd been down this road before.

The two women sighed quietly, each for her own wound.

"Okay, then," said Lara, toweling her neck and changing the subject, "what's next on the agenda?"

"This is it for Chilé," said Christine. "But I've received word that about a dozen press agencies are interested in talking to you as soon as the meet is over."

"Interesting," replied Lara. "I thought we had publicity back under control."

"I don't know how they got word," said Christine apologetically, "but they're up there now, waiting by the platform for the awards ceremony."

"Ah," said Lara. "Then it's Plan-C again?"

"Okay," said Christine wearily, "if you say so."

When they arrived at a place where the words EL CUARTO DEL CAMBIO, MUJERES appeared on the wall above a set of double doors, they stopped, and Lara asked:

"Anything else?"

"Yes. Jacob Corbin is here," Christine said, turning Lara's face instantly sour. "He says it's important you come up and see him as soon as you're ready."

"Oh," said Lara bitterly, pausing, sighing, and then quietly moaning: "Oh, hell."

"Is it a problem?" asked Christine curiously, "I thought you would be happy to see him."

"Oh, I am," Lara sighed. "I'm just sure I know want he wants, that's all. It's my birthday tomorrow, remember?"

"Yes, I know," Christine replied, Lara's meaning lost to her; as was often the case.

Christine regarded Lara curiously, waiting.

"Look," Lara asked, "when you were younger, did _your_ parents throw you some dreadful quincienera or something?"

"Yes," Christine said, beaming, "I debuted at sixteen."

"Gah!" Lara balked. "You make it sound as though it were a _good_ thing!"

"It was!" Christine said. "It was one of the greatest nights of life!"

"Are we to led around like show-horses, then?" Lara said with a scowl, "with bits in our mouths, for Pity's sake? Are we to be oogled and aagled and placed on the market block? Are we to be _displayed_?"

"But it wasn't like that!" Christine insisted. "It made me feel grown up."

"Well I don't need a fucking party for that!" Lara snapped, realizing the next instant how she had just carelessly stepped on her assistant's feelings. Yet again. "I'm sorry, Christine. Of course it's not _your_ fault. I just feel so. . . _railroaded_. I just wish that my grandfather, and Uncle Jake, and all the others would give it a _rest_. I've been on the cover of a dozen sport magazines; I'm the amateur champion of an hundred different things--how much more _debuted_ can I be?"

Christine could only gaze back, glassy-eyed. Lara knew Christine didn't have an answer, and she also knew that Christine _hated_ it when Lara attempted to extort one from her. Luckily, Lara was feeling more sensitive than usual.

"Well, anyway," Lara said more brightly, incorporating a heavy tone of self-satire, "_go and do my bidding_."

Both women then relaxed and laughed, and Lara started into the locker room.

Before vanishing, Lara called back: "I'll talk to you when it's over."

"How will I find you?" Christine asked.

"We'll meet at the airport," her voice echoed from inside, the double doors still swinging in her wake, "I'll be waiting on the plane."

But clearly Christine was doubting Lara's mental math: She had just added 2 + 2 and got _5_.

She pushed her head into the locker room, "But what about Mr. Corbin? Won't you be going home with him instead?"

"Not if I can help it," Lara said, shooing her with a wave. "Now, go!"

Christine remained a moment in the hallway, sighing. She shrugged her shoulders, dreading what was coming next--as she always did. She was well paid and loved her boss, but this was the part of her duties that was always the worst. She hated doing this; and her reasons for hating it were, though obvious, very difficult for her to articulate. She always wanted to say 'no' to Lara, but she never did. Christine sulked back to the coliseum for the gymnastics meet's closing ceremonies, dreading 'Plan-C'.

* * *

Lara showered and changed into her street clothes. She could have changed into something more formal--she actually had a dress cleaned and hanging in plastic in the locker--but she decided to avoid making things so easy for Uncle Jake. Instead she squeezed into her wilderness shorts and belted them tight around her waist. Then she put on a heavy cotton T-shirt, and a khaki wilderness vest, and she stepped into a pair of good leather hiking boots. To top it off, she combed her wet hair straight back and banded it into a pony tail. After adding the requisite Rayban sunglasses, the image was complete.

Uncle Jake would _freak_.

As she left the locker room for the corridor up to the coliseum's lobby, Lara simmered internally, briskly, in thought. There had to be way out of this. She _could_ simply duck Uncle Jake--slip out the back doors, maybe. But how then, would she face her grandfather and his disappointment? There had always been an excuse before. There had always been a very _good_ excuse in point of fact. She had, of course, always been able to avoid these "intentions" of theirs, but neither explicitly nor implicitly had she ever outright _refused_ them. In fact, there had been several incidents she could recall where, by implication at least, she had actually directly agreed to their nefarious plans for her "proper" debuting--time permitting.

This was why always, come this time of year, Lara had to be on her toes. She had to do her homework, and plan against their planning against her. But this year, unfortunately, she had been sabotaged: This Puerto Montt meet was supposed to have lasted one more day, but it was rescheduled just weeks before it took place--too late to withdraw from it without it looking extremely suspicious to her Uncle. And Uncle Jake had apparently done some homework of his own: How _did_ he find out that this meet was ending earlier than was on her schedule? One more day and Jake would have been on a prior commitment to some big meeting in China or somewhere, with hardly the leisure to come fetch little lost Lara home. _Boo-hoo, poor Lara missed her party again_. But instead he came early! Damn him! It was almost as though there were some conspiracy at work. If Christine were in on it, _by God_, Lara would switch her brown hair dye with green!

Lara climbed up the stairs to the busy lobby and froze. There was a forty-year-old man in a tailored black business suit and black plastic shades leaning cross-armed in the doorway to the coliseum. Uncle Jake. He checked his watch and tapped his foot twice.

Yes, Lara thought, it was her worst fear. Uncle Jake was only time-conscious when it came to doing favors for others. He didn't come for the show, he came strictly to collect her; most likely on Grandfather's explicit instructions. There was still time, though. He hadn't noticed her yet. She could still slip out through the front doors, where ten or more taxicabs stood waiting. . .

She was already dreaming up her excuse: A last minute meeting across town. _Yes._ Then a word that the second place winner had contested the results and demanded a rematch. It would be unofficial, but a challenge to both sportswomen's honor that couldn't be ignored. _I'm sorry, Grandpapa, but if I had simply left after such a challenge as that, it would have been an unforgivable blemish on my honor and reputation. You wouldn't want something like that to befall poor little me, would you?_ Of course, convincing the second-place contestant to offer testimony to this effect might require a good deal of persuasion on Lara's part, but that was what expense accounts were for.

She was nearly to the door when a voice--which she would at any other moment have been happy to hear--struck her ears like the flaming exhaust of an F-16 jetfighter and made the hairs on the back of neck sizzle: "**Hey, Lara!**" She cringed and turned on the source of that voice with aghast, rushing up to him and trying to still his loud, loud mouth.

"Shushhh! Shushhh, Steve!" demanded a whispering, irate Lara, but it was too late; Uncle Jake had turned at the sound of her name and had seen her. He was already walking towards them.

"Pretty good out there," Steve said, a twenty-something-year-old Swiss. "No one noticed that third landing, I'm sure."

Lara stared at him meanly, her eyes like daggers.

Steve smiled. "I hope you'll be at the Witzserschandt in January so I can run you down."

Lara smirked sarcastically. Steve was otherwise the best on the slopes at Witzserschandt, but he would never beat her. But it did give her another idea . . .

"Steve," she said quickly, seeing Uncle Jake over Steve's shoulder--coming--almost within earshot.

"Yes?" Steve replied.

"Are there any skiing events going on soon? Like, _very_ soon?"

"Well, there's one Alps tourney in about a week, but I'll be busy--"

"No, _sooner_!" she said--Uncle Jake was almost upon them!-- "like right now, right after this."

Steve smiled again--clearly realizing Lara's predicament.

"Happy birthday, Lara," he said, adding sadly: "But no. There's nothing going on that I know about. Sorry about that."

"Lara!" said Uncle Jake, an American.

"Uncle Jake!" replied Lara, turning towards him. "What a surprise!"

"I'll bet it is," Jake Corbin said. "Why don't you introduce me to your friend."

_Boyfriend_, she heard his voice implying. She denied the possibility implicitly with her tone:

"This is Steve Slobben," she said, "he's a semi-professional skier. And he's gay."

Jake Corbin's face fell.

Lara laughed.

Steve quickly changed the subject.

"I don't understand your niece, here," he said. "She could do gymnastics in the Olympics if she wanted to. She could ski there too. Or swim. Or dive. She is so good. Why don't you talk to her?"

"I have tried," explained Corbin, his tone testifying to the futility of the experience.

"I'm not _that_ good," she replied.

"You _could_ be," Steve said. "I pour my heart into my skis, and I only hope one day to beat you. If you chose to do just _one_ thing, you could--"

But suddenly--

"_And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have been waiting for,_" the coliseum loud speaker echoed throughout the lobby.

"Hummm. . ." murmured Uncle Jake. "Here we go..."

And Steve and Uncle Jake turned and trotted back toward the doorway for a better view. Lara considered ditching them right then, but she hesitated. In a morbid sort of way, she was actually curious. She walked up and gazed out from behind their adjacent shoulders as though through a cracked door, hiding her face. She heard Jake Corbin muttering quietly--was it timidly?

"That's a _lot_ of reporters..."

On the floor, indeed, there _were_ a lot of reporters. Dozens. They had crowded around the awards podium, and seemed to be taking little or no interest in the winning contestants already there. They were waiting. Waiting. Patiently. Looking around. Waiting.

After the announcer named the third and second place winners, he finally called out: "_and the number one contestant is, for the third year in a row! Lara Croft!_"

And the applause. And the applause. And the applause.

And the reporters were waiting. Patiently. Like vultures.

"Aren't you going to accept your trophy?" asked Uncle Jake.

"_Accepting the Seventh Annual Puerto Montt Gymnastics Invitational trophy will be Lara Croft's assistant, Christine Palaos_."

"Plan-C," said Lara grimly.

The announcement was met with scattered 'boo's from the crowd.

The young woman, Lara's assistant, Christine, stepped timidly up to the awards-bearer, accepting the trophy without ceremony. Perhaps she whispered 'thank you', but she kept her eyes on the floor the whole time and then hastily fled center stage, followed by the 'boos' and disappointments of a crowd of cheated fans and angry media.

And it was the reporters that made Lara feel most sorry for her assistant, whom she knew despised this task. Yet it was a task that Lara made her do often, and usually for this very reason--to avoid all those contemptible reporters. Except these reporters weren't the usual band of tabloid "Lara-hunters" she had expected to see. She knew most of the hard-core Lara-hunters by face, and she hardly recognized any of these people. These were strangers; and strangest of all was their lack of the usual Lara-hunter-trademark bright-hearted enthusiasm: These reporters looked downright _grim_.

Lara watched the reporters as they urgently searched the crowd, feeling herself becoming more and more anxious. Even the people in the coliseum audience began to mill about, perhaps jostling for a better view of the floor and searching for the real winner. She suddenly felt an urge to flee: Any moment, they would look behind themselves and see her. And then the crowds would come, and flatter her; and then the reporters would come, and pester her. She didn't want to be subjected to either. She felt herself urgently shifting her weight on her toes, back and forth, wanting to move, wanting to--

Something raised the hairs on Lara's neck. Instinctively, she turned around.

Along the outside of the lobby behind them, walking behind the glass storefront between them and coliseum's valet-served circular drive, was a lone woman. Dirty. In tattered clothes. Proud. A worker. A mother. Insistently, a _person_. The woman walked along the sidewalk, searching the lobby from the other side of the glass. Lara gazed--their eyes locked-- and in that moment, a recognition passed between them. And also, for an instant, a _terror_. The woman's eyes quickly dilated, gazing awfully and certainly upon Lara, as if she had suddenly found the serpent she knew all along was with her in her bed. Her mouth opened, crying mutely at the sound-proof glass. And then she pointed her finger at Lara, and cried out again.

Pointing; awfully, pointing; silently, pointing; crying out, accusing; pointing, pointing. . .

Suddenly, a unformed security guard rushed in from the side, taking the woman by her shoulder and dragging her out into the sun-blanched courtyard beyond the valet parkway's over-head shade. Lara wandered into the lobby, roving toward the glass, following the woman with her eyes, staring at her while she stared back. Even in the courtyard, she woman was still crying out, still _screaming_ at the glass. She knew the woman couldn't see into the lobby anymore--not with the sun so bright out there and the chandeliers so dim within. Yet the woman kept staring. And kept crying out. And kept pointing.

Then Lara noticed the crowd at the roadside, just past the circle drive. There were perhaps 30 or 40 of them, all poor urban peasants. They were clearly veritably _itching_ to get past the uniformed guards holding them there in order to approach the lobby. That one lone woman had somehow sneaked by them to peak through the window. Now, released by the guard, she was turning toward the crowd. Lara watched while she addressed them, as though from a soap box. While she spoke, the crowd began to bustle and shift--restlessly and angrily. She watched the guard backing nervously away. . .

"Uncle Jake?" Lara called, just loudly enough to reach him in the coliseum doorway.

Jake Corbin, surprised by her voice, turned his head and regarded her. He joined her at the glass front and put a calming arm over her slender shoulders.

"Oh, no," he moaned, clearly also seeing the agitated crowd.

"What's going on?" she asked him plaintively, noticing his lack of surprise.

"We've got to go," he said quickly, taking her by the arm and leading her briskly toward the lobby's big, glass double doors.

"What's wrong?" called out Steve, still unaware of the crowd and very confused by their haste.

"Don't come out here 'till we're gone!" snapped Corbin, his voice grimly forceful.

"What is it?" demanded Lara, trying to look him in the face and be dragged at the same time.

Two valets in the lobby opened the doors for them and they passes swiftly through without acknowledging them.

Once in the open air, they heard the traffic and the breeze. They felt the summer heat, and they heard the angry crowd.

"_What?_" Lara insisted.

"Not until we're safe!" snapped Corbin, dragging Lara straight toward the thick of them.

Lara saw the Limousine--it _must_ be Uncle Jake's--parked only a few vehicles from the end of the circle drive and pointing out. The driver couldn't see them coming. Lara thought to try to call him on her celphone--it was all happening so fast!--The crowd clamored incomprehensibly in Spanish, each one's words drowning out the others until--

"_Está Está!_" cried out the woman from the window, pointing at Lara as they hustled still closer toward the crowd. "_Ella está! Ella!_"

The crowd hushed to silence, and the woman approached.

Lara shook loose from Corbin's grasp and stepped forward to confront her accuser.

"Wait!" protested Uncle Jake.

Lara noticed the woman's hand was behind her back, but. . .

"Laa-Raa Crooft?" asked the woman.

Lara replied innocently: "Yes. . ?"

And then it came!

The rock came out from behind her back, the woman scowling like a devil, fiercely, throwing her whole being behind that singular thrust. The rock, as big as a fist, screamed at Lara's face. Without time for the least wasted motion, Lara fainted to a side and let it go sailing by, missing her by inches. The woman was already down to her knees, grabbing at another stone, or a clog of dirt, or a handful of pebbles--

"Come on!" screamed Corbin, lunging for Lara and the Limo and but finding himself pelted from all around.

The crowd was screaming--they all had rocks--and the rocks came pouring down over them like hurricane hail!

The guards were there, screaming, firing shots in the air, but the crowd still advanced, and the rocks still fell.

Lara moved, bobbed and dodged, using her hand to knock away the largest of the things flying for her head but letting the others strike her up and down her body, mostly harmlessly--being unable to stop them in any case. Behind her was the Limousine--and Corbin, who was heroically trying to advance despite the barrage. He was holding up his suit-coat before his eyes like a cape, as if thin silk could be a shield from flying granite and murderous intentions. Buffeted back by the very blasts he had blinded himself to, he didn't see the man that Lara did, taking careful aim on him with a chuck of concrete from the curb as large as a softball. . .

Lara moved almost too quickly to see. She strafed sideways between Jake and the airborne killer, and she slapped the flank of speeding rock in air, using her entire torso as a pivot-- shoving it off course without stopping it. It screamed past her and Corbin, its speed unaltered, and it ripped across the hood of the Limo behind them as if across the surface of a pond too tranquil to fit the scene. It splintered the windshield before the driver's face, and it bounced up, up, up--leaving the driver inside jumping and shaking with horror.

Just as quickly, Lara lunged at Jake and grabbed him by the sleeve, dragging his pelted, beaten form around to the opposite side of the Limo. There, she opened the door and shoved him inside, pulling herself in after. She then reached out again one last vulnerable moment and yanked the door shut behind them.

"Murray!" gasped Corbin. "Locks!"

The driver, Murray, needn't have been told: As soon as the doors had closed, his hands had already been fumbling over the automatic controls. The four pins sank down and clicked loudly, assuringly. Murray breathed.

"Jesus, God!" Murray gasped.

"Are you okay?" Uncle Jake asked.

Lara nodded, seeming barely touched. She reached out and touched a bruise on Corbin's face.

"Are you?" she asked.

He pushed her hand away, strangely angry, uncharacteristically forceful.

"What the hell's going on, Uncle Jake?" she demanded.

He looked into her face and he hesitated.

The crowds outside roared and swirled around them, pounding the metal with their fists and slapping their rocks directly against the glass. The windows chipped and cracked; the Limo began to shake--

"Get us out of here!" Corbin snapped.

"But they, but--?" protested Murray incoherently, the crowd filling the driveway before them.

"Move ahead slowly," said Lara, "they'll move."

The Limo inched ahead. And then a little farther. Before long they were clear, but the glass had nearly broken through. Luckily, they were safe in the open streets of Puerto Montt before anything fully shattered.

In the streets of downtown, the buildings seemed to crawl by. They were towering, imposing, but distant; filtering though the Limo's tinted, near-shattered glass. The buildings took grotesque shapes against the sky above them, becoming crazily distorted in the window cracks' bizarre criss-crossing refractions of the noon-day sun.

Now that it was quiet, Lara asked.

"What just happened?"

Corbin was using a tissue to blot blood from a wound on his scalp. He made it clear through a glance that he didn't want to address this question yet. His eyes searched, as if trying to find the correct words; but Lara's expression was penetrating, and he settled for the best available truth.

"Croft Industries," he said.

"Of course," Lara replied sardonically.

"Your grandfather's in trouble," he said. "He needs to know you're safe."

"Call him," she grunted.

He shook his head.

"No," he stated bluntly, "on the plane, out of the country, into the air."

"Then _you_ tell me," she insisted. "What is going on?"

"I will," he assured her. "But on the plane, safe."

"Why won't you tell me now?"

"It's. . ." he stammered, "complicated. Look, I don't want you scared."

Lara chuckled incredulously.

"_Me?_" she sneered.

"Yes, _you_," said Uncle Jake. "You're not immortal and you're not invincible. And that's why he sent me to get you, to make sure you come back straightaway. And that's why I'm not going to tell you the rest until I know we're safely out of this."

"Out of what?" she asked.

"Lara," he said gravely, "I _can't_ tell you."

"Why?"

"Because I know you."

She shook her head; it wasn't enough of an explanation. She was about to retort--

He interrupted: "You have beautiful eyes, Lara; but they can't lie. And right now, I need anyone who sees us to believe that you're not someone important. And that you're not afraid."

Lara bit her lip, uncertainly.

Corbin leaned back into the Limo upholstery, making the leather screech. He tapped a few more of his wounds with his bloody tissue and looked out at the city, now becoming open country around them. He sighed and looked apprehensive.

Lara almost said something else three more times, but otherwise she was quiet the whole way to the airport.


	3. Chapter Two: Lara Croft

"_Fantasy_

_Illusion, fusion_

_Impressions of a high . . ._

_Who will reap the profit of a lie?_

"_Damage done_

_The truth is drowning_

_In a sea of hate_

_Wet_

_They wear the fiction like_

_A badge over their hearts . . . ._

"_Drawn is a picture of myself_

_It's all that I see _

_Leaving!_

_Gone are the cries I made for help_

_The mirror splits_

_Reflections of a lie_

"_Are you ready for a change?_

_Won't happen standing in the rain . . . ."_

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER TWO:** **"**Lara Croft**."**

Corbin had called ahead, and the gates to the landing field were already swinging open as the Limo approached.

The two armed guards who were pulling open the gates regarded the battered Limo with suppressed intrigue, and Lara could see the recognition in their eyes. These men knew who was inside of this vehicle, where it had come from, and why it was in such haste--all of the facts that Lara herself still lacked. Lara was proud of her remarkable talent for reading thoughts and intentions through people's eyes, but this time her intuition proved only a disservice: It only made her more anxious. Whatever was going on, someone had passed some strange judgment upon her. She had felt it from the mob, and now from the guards: This may have been their job--to guard and serve--but their real sympathies were elsewhere. For the first time in her life, Lara felt like a retreating, cowardly villain rather than the heroic champion she envisioned herself to be. She didn't like the feeling one bit.

"Uncle Jake," she hissed, "what the hell is going on?"

"Not yet," Corbin said, repeating the same--the _only_--two words that had left his mouth since they'd driven past the city limits five minutes before.

"Damnit," Lara cursed anxiously, quietly.

The Limo started across the open landing field, heading directly toward a white, privately- owned Leer jet parked at the side of the runway. Next to the plane was another vehicle, a pickup truck. It's bed was filled with angry, dirty, men. On the ground was the driver--also dirty--and a passenger: a clean Chilean bureaucrat in a business suit. They were all waiting for the Limo. They were staring after it intently.

"Uh-oh," said Corbin darkly.

"What is it?" asked Lara.

"Bribery," Corbin replied.

"Drive past?" asked Murray, glancing back from the driver's seat.

"Negative," said Corbin, in a tone more chillingly militant than any Lara had ever heard from Jake's mouth. "We're getting on that plane."

Murray shrugged and brought the Limo as close to the plane's gangway/door-steps as he could. He was facing the ominous pickup head-on when he stopped the Limo and his passengers prepared to disembark. Meanwhile, the men on the back of the pickup truck had begun to jump down and spread themselves tentatively around the Limousine.

"You may have to make a break for it, Murray," Corbin said. "I'm sorry about this."

"I understand, sir," Murray replied.

Corbin drowned out Murray's reply talking to Lara: "As for you: Poker face, Lara."

"What?" she protested. If there were going to be trouble, she had every intention of confronting it head-on.

"Just shut up and let me do the talking," he insisted.

With that, Corbin opened the door, removed his sunglasses, and stepped out of the Limousine.

"Mister Corbin!" called out the leader of the men already on the runway, the man in the suit. His English was strong, but deeply accented.

"Pardon me?" replied Corbin, becoming suddenly awkward. Peculiarly nervously, he turned back toward the Limo to politely offer a hand to Lara to assist her from her seat. Lara (begrudgingly, at first) took him up on his absurdly genteel offer, playing along. As soon as she stood on the runway before him, he peered his urgent eyes into hers as though to say _get on the plane, now_, and then he turned back to the man.

"You are Jacob Corbin, yes?" asked the man again.

Corbin stared dumbly for a moment, uncharacteristically flustered. "Well--no, I, uh--"

"The plane is registered to Mister Jacob Corbin," the man said. "Are you not him?"

Lara didn't get on the plane. She had paused to watch this scene play out. She sensed the dirty men maneuvering themselves behind her. Soon, the bulk of them were between the Limo and the Leer.

"No," said Corbin. "I'm Richard Henderson. I'm Mister Corbin's attaché."

"Oh?" said the man. "So this isn't the Croft granddaughter, then? Lara, is it?"

"No," Corbin said, "she's my, ah, my niece. Andrea."

Lara was impressed. Corbin had performed a truly impressive perjury. He had just successfully implied that she was really his mistress, and he was desperate to keep the affair a secret from his boss. She had no idea her Uncle Jake could lie so well. It was like watching another person. She wondered how many of the times he had missed her birthdays or hadn't shuttled her to sports meets had really been for the reasons he'd said they'd been.

"'Andrea,'" replied the man, suspiciously--clearly not believing, despite.

Lara wished she knew what was going on. She started inching for the entry ramp--just in case.

"You see," said the man, "I heard that the famous Lara Croft was going to be here in Puerto Montt today. When I learned that a Croft International senior executive's private jet was also here, well, I naturally put the two together. I was hoping to meet her, you see."

"Were you?" said Corbin. "Well, that's really too bad. Oh, well. We've really got to be going, now. Look, I hear she's still in town, though. 'Til tomorrow, I heard."

"Ah, well," said the man, tension building in his eyes--Lara could see it--"in that case--"

He shouted something in Spanish, and Corbin echoed the same word even louder in English--

"**GO!**"

But Lara didn't need any translation: She spoke Spanish as fluently as all of her other languages. She sprang for the gangway--but two of the dirty men had her by her arms before she had even reached the first step.

Instantly, the Limo was away--Murray must have floored it--speeding away from the plane, having answered the same call to action as all of the others. His sudden launch disrupted and scattered the incoming attackers and sent them scrambling in all directions, leaving only the nearest five close enough to actually grab at Corbin and Lara. Three grabbed Corbin.

Lara's two smelled awful--that was her first sense of them. She also noticed that one was slightly off balance to his outward side and the other was over-extending himself from his left. After mentally noting the three men attacking Corbin, she stomped one of her assailants' feet and then she used the other's wrist to twist him into a knot from his elbow down. Both men gasped and cried out in pain--the first falling silent when he landed face-first on the concrete, tripping on his own broken foot; the other when his twisted, locked arm-joints all dislocated, his knees exploded out from under him, and he flipped in air to land back-first, soundly atop the reeling body of the other. A second-and-a-half's worth of Lara Croft had been all it took to leave both men broken and unconscious on the ground.

Lara lunged past her broken assailants to assist her pencil-pushing, business exec uncle, Jake Corbin.

Jake's face was twisted into a scowl as the attacker behind him pulled his arms further back and made him rear up on his toes just to keep his shoulders in their sockets. The second attacker plunged his fist into his belly, making him wail. The third was about to attack as well, but before he did, he turned and saw Lara coming. It was the last thing he would see for many minutes.

At the sight of Lara's approach, the attacker holding Corbin loosened his grip unconsciously, allowing Corbin to pull his arms free in a sudden motion. Corbin quickly turned and struck his attacker in the face. The attacker fell a few steps back and was about to grab for him again when he saw Lara plow through the last of his comrades, storming straight for him. There was already a path of bodies--four of them--lying in a neat wake behind the pretty girl. He turned and ran.

"And you _stink!_" Lara shouted after him, stopping at Jake's side.

"Come on," said Corbin nervously, clutching for her shoulder, "let's get out of here."

Lara could see why Corbin was still worried: Those five had only been a third of them. The others had consolidated at the edge of the runway. The nine of them--then the _ten_, with the addition of the one that Lara had let escape--stood defiantly, glowering at them. They were gathering confidence from their numbers, lifting their voices into a single, building war-cry.

"Yes, yes," agreed Lara, "I think that may be best . . ."

The two turned and ran, but the mob overtook them at the steps.

Two or three pairs of hands yanked Lara her back from the gangway, pulling her back into the hoard. Their arms and hands swallowed her up and they slammed her backwards to the ground. Lara's eyes went wide as they swarmed over her, their faces hot and angry and violent.

Corbin, meanwhile, took two thoughtless steps up the gangway before realizing Lara wasn't with him. He span and saw her being consumed into the mob like a child into the wave of an ocean's stormy surf. At the sound of Lara's yelp, he leaped over gangway's rail and shot one angry kick into the nearest head. Two or three others tried to grab him as he landed, but only one succeeded. Still, the one was enough: Corbin was sent stumbling back as someone held him and someone else hammered him with punches.

Lara had let herself go resistlessly backward into the mob. She let herself be thrown down until the ones holding her down came into sight above, their greedy, violent eyes gloating over their fallen prize like wolves over fresh prey. They were close enough for her to smell their seedy breath. They were high enough for her to kick their ugly heads. Two fell in a flash before the others realized what had happened. Then, before they could intervene, her arms were both free and she had rolled from belly-up and backwards to all-fours, like a dog. They tried to keep coming--to kick and to punch down--but she targeted the closest two and struck them both with donkey-kicks to the groin. Oddly, though, their cries of pain sounded more like a roar than the pathetic groans of pain that she had expected. Or was the roar something else entirely?

The sound she was hearing was clearly mechanical, but she had no time to think about it--another attacker was launching a punter's kick at her ribs. Seeing it coming, she sprung herself upon him at the last instant, taking his foot in her hands and shoving it up, up, up--standing--and then shoving it still higher, fully above her head. His whole body went up into the air with his foot and she hugged his thigh to her chest, dropping to her knees and riding the leg down like a pestle, shoving his back into the concrete and his hip into dislocation.

Now standing, she could clearly hear the motor--_yes! A motor!_--and she glanced around.

The Limo was coming back!

Like a white streak, the Limousine had turned a circle in the middle of the airfield and was charging back toward the Leer and the pickup truck, gaining speed--aiming for the thick of the brute squad.

The brutes noticed it too, and they paused in their assault long enough for Lara to break loose from them and escape. She dashed toward where the two attackers were beating Corbin senseless beneath the fuselage of the Leer. The others tried to pursue, but were swiftly cut off when the white streak--the Limo--raced between. Clearly, its driver had noticed that his employers were no longer in the thick of the mob and had increased his speed. The crowd was scattered again, what was left of it. Murray hadn't run any of them over, but he had clipped several; and he had only narrowly avoided the unconscious injured as he had raced alongside them.

Knowing she was safe for the moment, Lara made swift work of the two men attacking Corbin: A few punches, a wrist lock, a twist, a kick--she had them off of him and out of the way in seconds. Corbin was still bleeding from his mouth, but he sighed a heavy breath that told Lara, however sardonically, that he was all right, and ready to make their next attempt to dash for the plane.

This time, they almost made it.

Lara reached the steps first, and was on her way up when Corbin was snatched from behind.

Lara span the instant she sensed Corbin's presence fading. She instantly appraised the situation and instantly reacted. Her foot flew in a lightening round-kick that somehow passed around Corbin's head without actually touching it. Her toe struck the head of the attacker beyond Corbin, canceling him before he could even get a firm hold onto Corbin's suit sleeve. Corbin, then safe, shot a wild, incredulous look into her eyes as he started climbing the steps, as though wondering how she had managed to make her leg bend _around_ him--as though he were almost afraid that it hadn't really missed him at all, and that at any moment he would _feel_ the blood exploding from his nose and eyes where her shin should have blasted through his face.

They were at the open hatchway, but mob relentlessly advanced; trying to climb the stairs after them.

Corbin turned and punched the first of them squarely in the eye, sending him tumbling back and over his comrades, spilling them all back onto the runway. By then, Lara was at the doorway to the jet; but she paused there because she realized their new dilemma: The gangway Corbin was defending was also the door to the plane. She watched Corbin swing and kick and spit at the advancing mob, unwilling to surrender the steps to them. But she also saw something else; and she smirked a cruel, mischievous smirk. She acted quickly and hoped that Murray was thinking a similar thought.

Lara stepped down behind Corbin and _shoved_ him into crowd from behind.

"--What--What are you doing?" Corbin gasped desperately, thrown well into the thick of them.

The crowd fell neatly back, preparing to absorb Lara's gift; but at that instant, Lara yanked Corbin back by the collar and heaved him back up the first two steps of the ramp. For an instant, there was a two foot clearing between the foot of the stairs and the nearest attacker. In the uncertain pause that followed, that space was filled by the white, streaking Limo--zipping through for a third and final pass.

The mob lunged back, and were probably congratulating themselves for their luck: They had all avoided being hit this time. They must have been quickly shocked, however, when they then saw the jet's gangway rising hydraulically into the door-frame of the Leer--with their two marks safely onboard the plane--the female daintily waving to them with a single pinkie of her extended left hand.

* * *

"Ta-Ta!" Lara called, retracting her arm just as the gangway/door sealed the hatch shut.

"Thank God they weren't armed," Corbin murmured, relieved; gingerly touching the bruise now rising over his left eye.

"Hey, I didn't know you could fight, Uncle Jake," said Lara, smiling--only _slightly_ condescendingly.

Corbin cocked his head at her and sighed back, indignantly.

"Let's get this thing off the ground," he said, stepping around Lara and stomping toward the cockpit.

"Indeed," replied Lara, quick on his heels. But when she had passed through the passenger cabin and had reached the cockpit, she found that where Corbin, at least, had an empty pilot's seat awaiting him, her co-pilot's space was already filled by someone else.

"Hello. . ?" she whispered in compulsive aghast.

He was ugly. And he was looking back at her with a gruesome, contemptuous smirk that bespoke just how much he _liked_ being ugly. He was a dark-skinned mountain tribesman. From the style and design of the jade amulet he wore about his neck, Lara figured he must have been from one of the Indian tribes that dotted South America's west coast: Such jade-work was typical among the highland tribes scattered throughout the Andes Mountains. Its artistry was the sole beautiful thing about him. He had been an ugly enough man to begin with; and yet, apparently, he and his tribe had decided to go for the gusto: His face was mutilated with long, black, knotted scars--raised dots, jagged lines, gaping pits--etchings from jaw to eye and from one side of his forehead to the other. He was the very _model_ of human repulsiveness. Perhaps his markings meant something good to him and his tribe, but they meant nothing to Lara but _ugly_, and his crude appraisal of her body--up and down--followed by that look of contempt, straight into her eyes . . .

"You fight _good_," he said, his accent exaggerating the word 'good' as if it had two u's rather than two o's. "I like fighting. Me and you, we fight some day, _yes_ . . ?"

Clearly, his ugliness went down far deeper than merely his skin.

"This is Kini," Corbin said, starting the engine and letting it hum.

Kini's ugly smile broadened even more, revealing his equally ugly, yellow crooked teeth.

"What--" Lara almost said, "_who_ is he?"

"Who do you think?" said Corbin, checking his instruments and then glancing once toward her, distractedly, "he's my co-pilot."

"Oh," she whispered, her eyebrows rising sarcastically, "obviously."

She couldn't stop staring at him, and it her took a moment before she realized that he was taking the opportunity to rape her with his eyes. When she broke her eye contact and let her eyes fall on something else, that only made his wicked grin fuller and its owner more pleased.

"Where'd you get him?" Lara hissed. "The zoo?"

"Go strap in," Corbin said, "we're taking off."

"Alright."

She backed out of the cockpit, never taking her eyes off of this 'Kini'.

She took one of the dozen or so empty passenger seats and started uneasily strapping herself in as the plane began to move.

* * *

For the first time in years, Lara was genuinely nervous.

Lara was willing to wait.

So she waited for the plane to lift off. And she waited.

She waited for the Leer to make cruising altitude. And she waited.

And she waited. And she waited.

When an hour had gone by, however--and then _two_--she could wait no longer.

She slipped the seat's headphones over her ears and pushed the PAGE PILOT button on her seat's console.

"_Yes?_" came Corbin's simple, impersonal-sounding response.

"Captain Corbin," said Lara, mockingly dry, "your passenger would like you to come and see her. She has a few questions to ask you. Such as: 'What the fuck is going on?'"

"_Relax,_" Corbin replied. "_I told you I'd tell you everything, and I will._"

"When?"

"_Soon,_" he assured her.

"Why not now?" she insisted.

"_I'm...still...setting some things up, up here._"

"Why not over the intercom?"

"_I'm...on the other line right now, Lara,_" Corbin said. "_Why don't you try to relax for awhile. I'll get around to you. I promise._"

Lara let a bitter pause pass between them.

"Fine," she finally said, abruptly terminating the connection.

She glanced out of the window and saw the world laid out before her. She was in the east aisle and could see the landmass of South America passing slowly by. Its colorful mantle was studded with mountains and valleys and green, green forests. The clouds looked like a sporadic pavement of crisp, white cobblestones. Meanwhile, across the aisle and through the window overlooking the opposite wing, she could see the Pacific Ocean's endless westerly expanse. But she preferred her own mountain view and returned to it.

For Lara, the sitting and the waiting were far worse than the fighting and the running. While she had been active, her adrenaline had been pumping and she had felt nothing but the exhilaration of the fight. Now that it was over, what did she have to distract herself from all of her little dings and bruises? She felt herself itching to _do_ something--how could she just sit there and wait? Who knew how long it would take for her Uncle Jake to find space for her in his suddenly (oddly) full schedule? Could she honestly expect she might drown her stings in the 'ecstasy' of viewing the Andes mountains? She had been trying to empty her mind and simply wait patiently, but she had finally found it impossible. With nothing to distract her, inexorably, all of her little, sticky pains seemed a dozen times worse. She squirmed in her seat. She hated being such a priss, but with nothing else to think about, all of her little pains veritably _badgered_ her. She checked her ribs: Where any broken? Bruised? No. Thank goodness. Her hands? Her head? Her knees? All the same. All were sufficiently intact for most general purposes. She was running out of parts to check, and finding herself staring into her own pristine reflection in the window glass.

Finally, having run fully out of real injuries to be concerned with, she was at last forced to admit that all she really cared about was her pretty, pretty face anyway. _That_ was what she had yearned for distraction from. All of her little pains had brought the little rich girl alive inside of her: Without something to more pressing to bury her with, her snotty, pathetic prissiness became all-consuming. She despised this part of her personality: It was vain, and it was shallow; but it was, in fact, the truth of her upbringing, and a powerful component of her conscience. Her other injuries might just as easily heal themselves as crookedly as they pleased, but her face _mattered_. It shouldn't have mattered, and she hated herself that it did, but she was compulsively grateful that her face was undamaged, and she felt deeply sorry for her poor Uncle Jake: He would be wearing that shiner of his for some time to come, the poor dear.

And that thought, indeed, led her to consider her uncle--a welcome distraction.

Her Uncle Jake had really impressed her today. It was quite a feather in his cap that he had fended off such a mob--at the odds of fifteen-to-two! Being the desk-bound business executive that he was, she decided that she would certainly let him take whatever credit he wanted, come the tale's inevitable and endless dinner-table retellings. He had certainly earned his bragging rights.

For Lara herself, on the other hand, this fight had been about average. Well, perhaps more furious than strictly average, but certainly nothing in comparison with the one particular fight she recalled from two years prior. She and her biker friends had found themselves fighting five-to-one in at a backwoods biker-bar in Germany. She smiled at the memory: Never tell drunk Germans that their liquor tastes like petrol. _Never_ do that. This fight today was certainly tame in comparison to that bloody mess.

But whatever this Puerto Montt fight lacked in violence, it more than made up in implications. There had been something particularly wrong about today. What was it her Uncle Corbin had said? 'thank God they didn't have guns'? And _'bribery'_? Who had been bribing whom? And why did those dirty people attack them in the first place? It had to have something to do with the people who attacked them at the Coliseum, but what could it all mean? And those people were awfully dirty, too. And poor. It was always worrisome when the very rich are forced to take issue with the very poor. Whatever the reasons, it never failed to make one feel guilty.

And it all tied back to her grandfather somehow.

She returned her gaze to the reflecting glass.

It wasn't working. None of these thoughts were helping her forget her pain. In fact, they were only making things worse. She didn't want to think about any of this any longer. She decided to pass the time instead drowning her unpleasant thoughts in some nice, soothing, Jazz. She was already wearing the headphones, so she simply flipped on the radio and prepared to switch to the Jazz channel.

She never made it there:

"_. . . updating the situation in Bogota. Colombian officials have released that the terrorist group calling itself the 'People's Justice Army' has seized the same building they bombed earlier this morning and have taken several hostages, including two surviving Tierzat Industries board members and at least two American citizens representing Tierzat's foreign parent company, Croft International. There has been no word yet on the group's demands to Tierzat or to Croft International, but they have threatened to kill all of the hostages if the government of any country attempts to use force against them._"

"Good Christ!" Lara gasped.

"_Two hours ago the Colombian government released a formal statement. The statement condemns the terrorists' use of violent force, but extends the People's Justice Army an offer of amnesty if they are willing to surrender themselves without committing any further acts of violence. The US government has issued a counter statement accusing certain members of the Colombian government of complicity with the People's Justice Army to help rid the country of Tierzat Industries, an unpopular and allegedly exploitative foreign company._"

"Oh my God," Lara whimpered, shifting through the available radio stations one increment at a time, hunting for details.

Switch.

"_. . . call them 'heroes' is self-defeating,_" said a commentator in Spanish. "_The poor may think of these villains as saviors, but they are short sighted and simple. They don't understand what a company like Tierzat can do for Columbia's economy._"

Switch.

" '_. . . when a hospital isn't for healing, but is instead for studying what makes people sick, that isn't charity anymore, that's exploitation. Tierzat may think they can muscle Colombians around, but the People's Justice Army are teaching them differently, I think._'

" '_But how can you condone violence?_'

" '_Against monsters like Tierzat? I know how it must sound, but . . ._'"

Switch.

"_. . . Justice Army has set the example for us all. Tierzat, Croft; they have their fangs in our blood vessels, and we have been letting them suck our blood for far too long. How much can the people take? Will the rich help us? No! Will the government help us? No! If no one will save us, then we must save ourselves!_"

And the cheers, and the applause: A crowd of hundreds. Thousands?

She whipped the headphones from her ears, having heard enough.

"Uncle Jake!" she shouted, "Uncle Jake!"

She leaped to her feet, almost forgetting to unbuckle herself in her fury. She stormed up to the closed cockpit door and flung it violently aside, ready to rage, and almost forgetting their strange new companion, the co-pilot, Kini.

"Uncle Jake!" she shrieked, quickly meeting Kini's cold, empty eyes and his hideous smile. She was caught off guard and stymied into hesitation.

"No, no," said Corbin, ignoring her; speaking into his headset. "I _can_ come. I mean, I have to, now don't I?"

"Uncle Jake?" she asked again, albeit more timidly.

"I'll speak with you more when I get there," Corbin continued. "No. No. I've got to go. Out."

"Uncle Jake?" she asked, insistently.

He didn't say anything for a long moment. He just stared at the plane's controls.

"You know now, don't you?" he finally asked, without meeting her eyes.

"Yes."

"Come on. We have to talk."

* * *

Corbin lead Lara back out into the passenger cabin and had her sit opposite him, across the aisle. He paused before he spoke, as if trying to think of the best way to present his thoughts. Lara gazed into his face, realizing that for the first time in her life, her god-uncle was actually regarding her as _human_. Not merely as the amusing Amazon super-girl whose fearless antics brought endless entertainment to friends and family alike; nor as the genius-savant whose brilliance in physics and math was only balanced by her absurd failures in day-to-day common-sense wisdom; nor even as the precious and precocious demon-toddler she once had been, whose antics Jake himself had delightedly furthered from her command-post high atop his ample shoulders. To him, she had always been forever a juvenile. Today, however, he seemed to regard her with a seriousness that almost upset the balance of their normally playful relationship. He seemed to regard her in a way that he should normally reserve for ordinary people--for _grown-ups_. He regarded her as an _equal_: A person vulnerable to an adult's world of anxieties and concerns. A person susceptible to fear.

"Do you know why I came to fetch you?" he asked.

"No," she stammered, "I mean, yes. I thought so. I thought you had come to make me go to Grandfather's debutante ball. It's my twenty-first birthday tomorrow. I figured that's what it was."

"It was," he replied. "In part. The old man is understandably up in arms about this thing in Bogota. The whole Corporation is crashing down all around us, Lara. And not just in South America. In India. South Africa. Everywhere. Your Grandfather is not very popular right now."

Lara pouted balefully.

"I know, I heard!" she said. "But I don't understand it! Croft Industries has never done anything harmful to anyone. This doesn't sound like the same corporation! The things they're accusing him of . . . Have you heard some of these things?"

"Of course," Corbin said. "I'm his senior executive officer in charge of overseas operations. I have to know about these kinds of things."

"And you didn't see this coming?" she protested.

"It's not that simple, Lara," Corbin said. "I knew there were problems. We've been handling them. These things must be done discretely."

"You call this discrete, Uncle Jake!" she gasped. "They've blown up Tierzat and killed people and taken hostages! Do I know any of these hostages?"

"No," Corbin replied. "I don't think so."

"And this is why all those nice people tried to kill us today?"

"A lot people are calling the terrorists heroes," Corbin explained. "It's starting a chain reaction all over the Third World. No place is safe for anybody named 'Croft' or who belongs to your grandfather's corporation. We were lucky back there that they didn't have the forewarning to arrange to have guns. That brute squad was probably thrown together in the time between us leaving the gym meet and getting to the airport. They must have bribed their way past the guards."

"Probably pretty cheep," said Lara. "I think the guards were on their side."

"Would figure."

There was a long pause while they each retreated temporarily into his or her own little world. Lara broke the silence.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

The question spawned another silence, this one deeper and, to Lara at least, much more frightening.

"Well," Corbin said, his change to a cajolingly tone akin to a complete change of subject, "I'm going to take you to your grandfather's Hacienda in Los Angeles."

"Los Angeles?" murmured Lara, sitting up, confused. "Why to Los Angeles?"

"Because that's where your quiencienera is to take place."

"Are you kidding me?" sighed Lara. "I'm twenty-one--Look! This is no time for this nonsense!"

"Of course it is," Corbin said. "What better time? This is what your grandfather most desperately wants right now, to see you debuted properly. Besides . . ."

Corbin hesitated, as though unsure whether or not he wanted to reveal this part.

"What?" insisted Lara.

"There's evidence we're not releasing to the press."

Lara waited.

"These bombings look . . ." he searched for the right word, "professional. Not the homegrown revolt they're making it look like in the media."

"Corporate sabotage?" Lara asked.

"Maybe," Corbin said. "That's why we need you home. We can't have you gallivanting all over the world right now--that makes you an easy target if they're really this slick. Your grandfather needs to know you're safe. A big debut with all of his friends and you right in the center is exactly what he needs to see right now. Some kind of normality for him. With everything else going wrong, that one thing could really help him out, emotionally."

"Is my grandfather okay?" Lara asked.

"Yes," said Corbin, "he's fine. Physically. Just sad. I need you to cheer him up for me. I'm not sure what else in this world possibly could."

Lara paused to think, then spoke.

"In the end, that's really all I'm good for isn't it?" she mused, bitterly ironic, "cheery room decor. I've spent my entire life trying not to be one of those whiny little tarts I grew up around, rich and more rich with no problems in sight and nothing but complaints about it all. Dress sizes and Italian slippers. Shopping, decorating, accesorizing. Who is marrying whom, and who is rumored cheating with whom else. Pretty little things. Good--_pleasant_--company. Not good for much else."

"You could always come _work_ for your grandfather," Corbin offered.

"A desk job?" she gasped incredulously. "And do like you do, sitting around all day? Wouldn't you think I'd be a little bored?"

"I don't think you'd be bored," said Corbin, a glint in his eye, "doing what _I_ do."

"Perhaps not," Lara said. "But I don't think it would be _me_."

The two looked at each other's faces for a long moment. Finally Corbin asked:

"Will you attend the debutante ball?"

Lara hesitated, but not from uncertainty so much as contemplation.

"Yes," she said, "I'll go."

"You promise?" Jake asked.

"I never break a promise," she said.

"I know," Corbin said. "So? Do you?"

"I promise."

"Good."

Corbin stood to return to the cockpit. He had made his first few steps when Lara spoke to him again.

"You know," she said. "I've lead a trivial life. I never thought that I had before now. I thought, if I could just keep myself busy, doing incredible things, pushing my limits, challenging myself. I thought, if I could just do _that_ forever, until I died. If I could, then my life would have meaning no matter what else happened. But that's not true, though--is it, Uncle Jake?"

Corbin didn't answer. He just looked at his god-niece, and waited.

"There has to be more, doesn't there?" she continued. "There has to be a purpose, doesn't there? There has to be a reason."

"Try to get some rest, Lara," Corbin said. "It's a long trip ahead."

Lara nodded and nestled herself into her seat, trying to sleep, and succeeding.

* * *

_The engine purred; a soothing lullaby. She was drifting._

_Something changed._

_The engine was still purring, but it was wrong. Something felt strange. _

_--Someone was watching--_

_From darkness to light_

_--A face, black, ugly--_

_--a flash!--_

_Darkness: A deeper darkness. _

_Even the engine sound was gone._

_When it came back--_

she awoke with a start.

Everything was fuzzy, both her memory and her vision. She was drowsy and confused, but she knew that alone couldn't account for her burning sense that something around her was wrong.

Yet, everything seemed fine. Suddenly--

Her brain rattled, shaking. A jarring sound--

She felt her body up and down, searching until she found the source of the alarm, the siren, the _ringing_.

She found it.

Her digital celphone.

"Hello? Oh, Christine . . . No, I'm all right. I've a headache s'all. Really. A . . . I . . . I know I didn't meet you . . . Look. Christine. No. . . No . . . I'm gone from Puerto Montt . . . I flew out with Uncle Jake . . . The air . . . I don't know. No . . . No . . . Come to Los Angeles when you're done. Yes, I know . . . I'm going to do it this time . . . Good idea; call them, let them know . . . Just don't mention my name to anyone down there, okay? No, please . . . Just trust me. I'll explain everything when I--Hello? Hello?"

The phone had lost its satellite link, as it often did in flight.

". . . Christine? Bugger."

In the aftermath of the phone conversation, the same, strange dread returned. Lara couldn't place it, but something was definitely _wrong_.

She listened to the sound of the airplane's engines. They sounded fine.

She glanced out of her window and across the sun-glistening ocean waves below.

Maybe there was something strange about that, but she couldn't think what.

She wondered how she'd gotten this terrible headache. She reached up to rest her head in her hand. She breathed in deeply, hoping to revive her brain with fresh air. She had the air in her lungs, holding it, when--

--_It wasn't a dream!_--

--the palm she had placed on her head was now streaked with blood--

--She gasped loose the air she was trying to hold, and it came out as a high-pitched wheeze; almost a scream--

At that moment, two things happened:

First, she realized what was so strange about the ocean being visible from her east-side window.

The second, the cockpit of the Leer jet exploded.


	4. Chapter Three: 36 24 36, 180

"_Yes, no, yes, no_

_Not _

_Another word_

_You'll know what to do_

_Right_

_In your face they'll see it_

_In their face you_

_Take it_

_Make up their minds_

_Aggression turns the screws_

_Fight! _

_Take your piece and hold it_

_Make your piece and--_

"_Stand up _

_You know it means_

_Wake up_

_Time to live your dreams..._

"_Nothing's ever easy when you do it yourself_

_All you can do is try_

_Life's not unfair_

_Life's just life_

_Death_

_Not_

_Suicide!"_

**--Anthrax.**

**CHAPTER THREE:** **"**36-24-36, 180.**"**

Screams--

Wind--

Pain--

A thought: A face, a flash, a name:

--**_Kini_**--

Her head,

_Pain_

The window, the ocean:

Too close.

Too low.

_Too low!_

The plane was about to crash!

Lara struggled loose from her seat and threw herself into the aisle while ferocious winds whipped her pony tail into a frenzy all around her face. She stumbled--half-blind and off-balance--as the plane tipped right and left: It was out of control and beginning to dive. She fought to breathe the thin air and she threw herself up the windy aisle, struggling her way to the cockpit.

What was left of the cockpit.

The cockpit's door had been blown completely from its hinges and now lay somewhere aft (Lara dimly recalled how the moments-past explosion had sent the metal door soaring over her head, only narrowly not decapitating her on its way by). Through the carbon-scarred, misshapen door- frame, she could see smashed flight instruments and shattered glass windshields. She threw herself into the cockpit and glanced quickly, desperately around. Though the wind was blinding and almost unbreathably thin, she could see that there wasn't any blood in the cockpit, and there weren't any bodies. Both pilot seats were empty and relatively undamaged. Whatever had happened, no one had been there at the time.

Lara's mind veritably whirred--

_Some warning. _

_Some reason. _

_A plan all along._

_**Kini.**_

She silently growled his name while her thoughts boiled with angry thoughts of his ugly face and the cold blackness behind his eyes. She touched the wound on her scalp where he had struck her. The winds had blown the blood dry, and adrenaline had diluted the pain; but, from anger, the mark still pounded with a dull, irreducible throb.

She solemnly concluded: Kini would _not_ get away with this.

Defiantly, Lara took the pilot's seat and seized the control yoke. Luckily, the explosion had not damaged most of the plane's critical internal electronics: Though there was no navigation system, no compass, nor any telecommunications, at least Lara could still steer. After leveling the plane, she more carefully assessed the cockpit's damage. It would seem that the cabin explosion had thoroughly shattered the instrument panel, leaving no single gage nor instrument intact. Things didn't look good. While she could relatively easily estimate her altitude and flight speed, it was impossible to guess either her heading or her location. All she knew was that from their original 25,000 foot cruising altitude, the plane had already fallen to below 5000 feet. Apart from this, there was nothing more she could presume save the obvious fact: She was on her way out to sea.

All around, there was nothing but barren blue water.

At first this seemed a reasonable cause for panic. However, when Lara considered the plane's speed, altitude, and the position of the sun in the sky--the obvious time of day--, she registered the fact that she could not have been asleep long enough to escape all sight of land--not, at least, at this altitude. Land, therefore, must still be somewhere nearby. Though she saw nothing but ocean to her front and left and right, she knew this only meant that land must be _behind_ her.

She pulled hard on the yoke and made the plane bank and turn.

The ocean blurred and rolled beneath her as she banked, and the late afternoon sun rolled up and span back out of sight. Then, just as she had expected, land indeed appeared. It was the Peruvian coast: She could see the jagged and stately Andes Mountains, shrouded in clouds and mist. She, indeed, had not traveled very far at all: She could even see the two parachutes--like two specs of dust--vanishing into the mountain mist.

Uncle Jake's parachutes.

Lara seethed.

Uncle Jake had suspected that she would be the target--the Croft granddaughter. But Kini had clubbed her and left her for dead, kidnapping Croft's senior executive officer instead. It would seem that underestimation was to be the theme of the day: Uncle Jake had underestimated his own value to the Company's enemies, Lara had underestimated the value of her own life, and now it was time for Kini to underestimate Lara Croft.

"Gotcha," she hissed.

She was going after them.

It would have been hours before any American military force would have been able to deploy to so remote a location, even if she were to call them that instant on her satellite cell phone. By then they--whichever bastards Kini was working for--would be long gone. Uncle Jake's only chance was to have eyes already on the ground _before_ the rescue team arrives; and, for that duty, Lara's eyes would nicely do. That she hadn't had any formal military training meant very little: The formal military were pussies anyway. She was stronger than most of them, and far smarter than their doctrine. Jake Corbin had been like a father to her, and she wasn't about to trust his life solely to the United States Army. Not so long as there was anything she herself could do about it.

The mountains came into full view before her. She could clearly make out the mountain peak where the two parachutes had gone down. Her jump point was coming up quickly. She had little time left.

"Now or never, Lara," she told herself, and she toggled back the throttle to slow her approach. After that, she abandoned the cockpit; and the plane became instantly unstable at the loss of her hand. The autopilot had been destroyed in the explosion, and she could feel the plane beginning to dive again.

_Enough time_, she told herself, _enough time_.

She left the cockpit and threw herself down the aisle of the passenger compartment. She shoved her way back and forth between the seats to keep herself upright while the plane bucked and wobbled. When she arrived in the aft cargo section, she saw how the cargo side-door was already open, revealing the ocean below. The plane was already lower than she had anticipated. Her rate of descent was increasing. There wasn't much time. In seconds, the scrolling ocean below had changed to scrolling land. She frantically scoured the cargo section for Uncle Jake's other parachutes, but she failed to find them in their respective lockers. They were _nowhere_ to be found. It would seem that Kini had been more thorough than Lara had anticipated: He'd dug through ten lockers to find and dispose of two parachutes that he hadn't even needed.

Suddenly Lara was trapped. She couldn't jump, and plane was still descending.

Soon it would strike the mountainside.

"Oh, dear," Lara murmured.

Back to the cockpit!

Practically throwing herself from aisle-seat to aisle-seat to propel herself through the passenger compartment, she lunged for the controls. All along the way, she could see the mountains looming terrifically through the cockpit's broken windshield panes: Like an elegant landscape painting, swaying impossibly in its frame. Lara retook the pilot's chair and shoved the throttle fully open, pulling the yoke back hard--

"Climb, you bastard, climb!" she screamed.

And the plane responded. Its climb managed to edge just enough sky between her nosecone and the horizon to clear the mountain peaks; but only by a margin of meters. She had managed to preserve her life for another few seconds, but the climb was abortive and unsustainable. She had no choice but to level herself and reassess. Once stable, she could see a landscape of mountains peaking through the cloud-cover before her, arrayed like a garden of sharpened stones; but this beautiful view was one she neither wanted to see nor could afford to long indulge. Without a means of parachuting, she had no choice but to find a way to land her plane, and this would be impossible amongst the forbidding and forbodding deathscape she saw before her. Thus, she had no choice: She pulled back the yoke and prepared to climb back over the shoreline's mountain ridge. She was heading back to the ocean. Her only chance was a water landing.

But then she heard the engines kick.

And kick again.

And sputter.

Losing power.

Running on fumes.

_Out of fuel_.

"Uh-oh," she said.

Thinking fast, she shoved the throttle to its fully-closed position and she dived down through the clouds, down into the valley below.

It was too late to get back to sea, even at a glide. The Leer was committed to a crash: Either into the mountain slopes, or directly into the heart of the twenty-square-mile rainforest she saw looming below her. The mountains of this ridge were a part of one continuous ring with the rainforest nestled within, and a huge, round, crater-lake in the center. At the altitude her fuel ran out, she was already below the height of the mountain peaks, and she no longer had the power to climb back over them. She was trapped in the valley. It would be here where she would have to make her play.

Lara dived, dived, and dived: Directly for the lake.

It seemed as though certain death was coming; yet, even as she fell, her cool mind was computing equations: Wing-lift ratios--on a transitional scale between her shifting, estimated altitudes--; Leer Jet structural specifications; torque and torsion limitations; velocity, gravitational acceleration, metal mass, engine-thrust foot-poundages--everything that could be a variable for a multi-vector course calculation. She estimated whatever numbers she couldn't exactly factor--such as precisely how much fuel she had left--but she knew the rest of jet's mathematical specifications almost precisely. She mentally crunched these numbers with cool, mathematical precision to gage exactly how many seconds she was from the valley floor and watery death. She accelerated downward with gravity as an ally--diving, diving, diving--and she timed herself, counting as she fell.

Counting, counting, counting . . .

But while she counted distance, she also found herself counting her own good fortune. As she calculated functions and crunched numbers that should have required both specialized training and sophisticated computing technology--all in her head--and she resolved solutions that were quite favorable to her new, mad plan, she found it impossible to _not_ thank Providence (whatever Providence was) for making her what she was: A rich, bored debutante with nothing better to do each day than work-out and read textbooks, journals, and technical manuals; a beautiful, physically superior woman, possessing a one-hundred-and-eighty-point IQ . . .

Diving, counting, diving . . .

Then--

_Pull back hard!_

The nose of the plane whipped up, and Lara was shoved into her seat by the inertia--an inertia that would have made most people black-out and might have killed some others. Then, swiftly, the mountain her calculations had targeted came into view before her: The one with the highest peak and best slopes. She had chosen it, and had aligned her other course-calculations with it wholly in mind. To her, it was not a terrible, looming obstacle, but rather a gleaming green-brown, white-capped runway. Lara opened the throttle and unleashed the last of the power that remained to the plane, making it swoop parallel to the mountain slopes, vertically, in the just the way it might have swooped down upon an airport runway, horizontally--and at comparable, gradually self-retarding speeds. Lara used her last ounces of fuel to angle the plane skyward, parallel to the mountainside. She manipulated a balance between thrust and gravity to generate a controlled and delicate approach. Then, the mountain, like a dancing partner, crept closer and closer, slower and slower. With Lara's guidance at the helm, the two finally came together and embraced . . .

Impact!

The first thing she felt was the cockpit's height foreshortening. As if she were on the inside of softdrink can under the heel of a boot, the ceiling came down and the floor came up, and she felt as though her spine might explode free from her back and come springing loose about the cabin on its own compressed force. But she didn't lose her spine, miraculously. Instead, she fell from her seat and was nearly trapped beneath the control panel as a mountain's worth of freezing snow poured in over her, through the glassless windshields. She pulled herself upright, however, and was able to kill the engine's last remaining thrust just before it might have wrenched the plane loose again.

Suddenly, all save the mountain's wintry breeze was still and quiet.

It had been no delicate landing, that was for certain--if even it could be called a 'landing' at all. The plane had followed the slope of the mountainside, had clumsily struck against it, and had dragged its way to a halt via the attrition of gravity, the friction of stone, and the weight of an avalanche of suddenly displaced snow which had effectively buried its nose. In addition to these forces, the final stop-measure had only come when the plane had brutally struck two rocky outcroppings and had become wedged between them. By all rights, the plane, now suspended nearly vertically upon the mountain face, should have been rolling end over end: It should have been toppling two thousand feet down the jagged mountain slope. Instead it was resting quietly while its passenger caught her breath on its half-snow-bound floor. Even guided by Lara's clearly ingenious mathematics, it was nothing short of a miracle that the plane had come to a rest at all, let alone come to a rest in the condition it was in: Warped and torn, but somehow still in one piece.

But Lara knew the miracle wouldn't last.

No sooner had the Leer lurched to a halt than it began to shift in place, creaking loudly. Lara could hear its metal bending, tearing, and shredding. Gravity was pulling it out of the mountain, peeling it out from its hole. In seconds, it would fall--along with the rocky, snowy avalanche its impact had just created all around it. As Lara sat listening, the plane budged. A metallic sound built upon itself as though toward a crescendo, and then a wing--the one most wedged in the rocks, the one doing the most to hold the plane in place--suddenly ripped away from the fuselage.

Instantly, the Leer jet was sliding downhill with the falling rocks and snow.

Lara suppressed a scream, scrambling clear of the snow that had partly covered her body--snow that was still coming in, falling over her as if a torrent from those damnable open windows. The entire plane was shaking and raging with the falling avalanche-bombardment. Rocks and snow and ice pounded the fuselage like an angry giant's boots, kicking--veritably_ kicking_--what little was left of Jacob Corbin's private Leer Jet, shoving it down the side of the mountain.

Lara somehow escaped the cockpit and the snow, and entered the topsy-turvy passenger compartment beyond, but all of her orientations were confused: Up had become down and sideways had come to mean nothing. She less ran to the back of the cargo section than she simply _fell_ there--grabbing out for the seats to slow her descent as she bounced and flitted past.

She struck the aft wall hard, finding herself dazed and breathless, resting just left of the open cargo door. She was dizzy, but not as disoriented as she feared she might become. Clear-headed and stable against the wall, she was able to look out through the cargo door to see the side of the mountain sliding by outside at an ever increasing speed--though her view was obscured by the avalanche of snow and ice and stone. She was thinking about jumping, she was considering jumping; but the slope was steep and forbidding. Was it a 60-degree decline? a 70-degree decline? It was just so, so steep . . .

Circumstances obviated her indecision. The plane hit a rocky abutment so large that it virtually halted the plane's slide. The impact shattered the hull of the fuselage and sparked its near-empty fuel tanks, igniting a violent explosion that rocked the mountainside. Luckily, the jet's abrupt halt had sent Lara sailing out of the cargo door just prior to the blast. She was clear just in time to be protected by a steep bank of snow, stone, and ice when the jet's fuel tanks showered the area with flames.

Lara tucked and rolled as she hit, caught by the force of the avalanche around her. She tumbled and tumbled--head over heals--deliberately rolling and re-launching herself, deliberately never stopping. Stopping, she knew, would mean either third degree scalding beneath the plane's then-cascading death-flames, or entombment beneath the icy, flowing, avalanche: Death either way: Death, alone, upon the icy mountainside. She had to keep falling; and, luckily, falling was easy: The slope was too steep to stop herself had even she wanted to.

Lara was falling amidst a mess of fragments. The plane's impact with the rock and its subsequent fuel explosion had scattered debris all about, leaving everything spilling down the hill. Lara herself was just such debris--but so also was a shattered piece of fuselage that had come to tumble next to her, edging closer as she noticed it. Its large, round belly skipped across the snow like a tossed stone across a lake, rapidly threatening to collide with her. Its razor edges would brutally lacerate her tender flesh. Lara flattened herself upon her back, changing from a roll to a slide. She reached out to knock the dangerous scrap away--but then didn't. For a moment, her hand was on the metal, and the two debris ran side-by-side. She had an idea . . .

In a lightning flash, she rolled atop the fragment--and--suddenly, Lara wasn't tumbling anymore. The piece was just big enough to accommodate her body and her limbs, and it was firm enough to support her weight easily. Its smooth underside rocketed her down the slopes, and she found she could steer it like a sled. She angled herself sideways and emerged clear of the avalanche.

"Ha-ha!" she cried out, racing at luge-record speed, cutting horizontally along the steep slope.

She could slow down now, if she chose. It was just like sledding. All she needed was a flat-looking place to--

"Uh-oh..."

The slope was ending.

It was about to drop off.

At a cliff.

Lara admired the beautiful view of the valley beyond, now unobscured by the avalanche and the damned inconvenience of her previous view from a crashing airplane. She could see the entire lake, surrounded by its lush forest greenery and its complex of river systems. Water flowed in from the mountain peaks and surged in rapids around small islets and gushing waterfalls. The view was glorious and breath-taking. She wondered almost calmly if this would be the last earthly sight she would see, the picture she would have in her mind when she arrived in Heaven.

But she doubted it.

She leaped to her feet suddenly and took to the metal piece like a snowboard, standing, using her balance to guide and direct her descent through the snow. She watched while the edge of the cliff loomed ahead and seemed to hover menacingly before her. She waited until the last instant, and then, as she took the cliff, she leaped with all her strength and rode the scrap up and up, balancing it in air, sailing, soaring...

Lara smiled.

The earth came back on the other side of the gulf, and when she triumphantly landed and continued her run, she only wished Steve Slobben had been there to drool and be jealous.

* * *

_The natives were restless, _the visitor thought.

The expression had always made him smirk. Especially at times like this. The irony was just so very appropriate.

But outside of his hovel, the others really _were_ restless--running around, hollering.

He hadn't mastered even the fundamentals of their language, but they were saying many of the words he did know. The words he had ensured he had taken the time to learn. They were saying things he normally only expected to hear in tales around campfires or during one of their ceremonies.

"The mountain!" shouted one, dashing across the village and pointing at a mountain peak that was visible beyond a break in the tree cover. It was the peak of the mountain that seemed always to be peering in over them, observing, watching, and judging. It was the one mountain in the ridge that had a Name.

Alarmed by the flurry of activity and suddenly realizing which mountain was involved, the visitor climbed up from his soft bedding of leaves and twigs and slowly, cautiously, climbed up to his shaky old feet. He watched their priest, Theowalap, raising his hands and facing one way and then the other, trying to calm the others, chanting his sing-song native prayer:

"Tsuwattle, Tsuwattle, hear our prayer; Qawalapeque, Qawalapeque, peace, be at peace!"

Men danced around, arguing and shouting and pointing--pointing at the mountain. Women held both their babies and their walking children close to them while hovering fearfully in the mouths of their hovels. All seemed despondent.

They watched, and their eyes seemed lost and bewildered at the sight.

It had been a long year--a terrible year--and yet, in end, even the gods would turn against them.

Their sheer furor inspired their visitor with awe and humility.

"What?" he asked Theolowap--knowing, but feeling cautious about presuming. "What is it?"

Theowalap paused from his prayer and turned to his foreign friend.

"We have all heard it," Theowalap said. "Just as was foretold. The mountain speaks. Qawalapeque's mountain speaks!"

Then he heard it too; and was dumbfounded.

Dumbfounded.


	5. Chapter Four: Uncle Jake

"_I sense confusion_

_Suspicion in the air_

_Untreated wounds of some dishonesty_

_Seeking comfort_

_The strength of friendly ties_

_Only truth can heal insecurity_

"_But I'm grateful to be far from harm_

_Safe within peaceful arms_

_Grateful knowing safety's warmth_

_And I'm grateful not to have to face_

_These days alone . . ."_

**--Anacrusis.**

**CHAPTER FOUR:** **"**Uncle Jake.**"**

She was almost sad to abandon her snowboard, but she had run out of slope. She was at the foot of the mountain, where steep precipices had given way to lazy draws and a lush valley. The snowy passes had ended, and gentler declines of green and warm, ruddy brown had appeared. She was entering a gradually thickening forest of trees and brush and ferns.

Despite the bitingly dry and windy cold high up in the mountains, it was pleasantly humid and refreshingly warm in the valley. Of course, Lara understood the physical reasons for the climate change, but the facts never diminished the magic. She felt as exhilarated at that moment as she might after any pleasant afternoon spent skiing. The run hadn't been Aspen or the Alps, but it had been great fun, despite circumstances. She had chosen her mountain well, she felt. Her keen eyes and savvy thinking had helped her avoid the most dangerously rugged cliffs, and she had avoided all of the awkward climbing that most of the other mountains in the ring had seemed to threaten at similar altitudes. Her hot, aerobic sweat had kept thawed the snow that had settled in her shirt and boots, and, at last, the valley's warm winds had fully dried her body and her clothes. By the time she had fully descended into the jungle's green corridors, she was feeling warm, dry, and wholly refreshed.

The valley was beautiful.

The trees were a mix of the tropical and temperate. The ferns, mosses, and other plants were vivacious but terrestrial, clinging mostly to the ground rather than cluttering the rough-skinned trees' trunks and branches. Without the usual jungle vines and hanging jungle mosses, the way before her and all around seemed queerly open and flat; making this, by far, the thinnest 'rainforest' Lara had ever seen--and she had seen many. It would seem that the mountains had isolated this valley to such a degree that its ecology had developed a number of unique or unusual qualities. She wished she could slow her brisk power-walk in order to more thoroughly investigate, but there was no time for science.

It was time for action.

It was time to reconnoiter her enemy. Her ene_mies_.

Lara was sure that Kini had chosen this valley neither capriciously nor by blind chance. Ingratiating himself so thoroughly into Jake's trust must have taken him weeks--perhaps even months. After so much obvious investment, it would make no sense to execute Jake's kidnapping in such an isolated place unless it was a rendezvous of some kind, a rallying point for his terrorist confederates. That understood, Lara knew that her first duty must be to identify the actual nature of her enemy. She had to determine their numbers, their equipment, and their apparent intentions. It was critical that she find them, lay eyes upon them, and report her findings to the appropriate authorities. What actions she would _then_ take, after this duty was accomplished, would depend entirely upon what she finds. If her Uncle Jake were in any imminent danger, she naturally concluded, she would _not_ wait: She would help him--with or without military assistance.

But before any of this activity should begin, Lara had first to make her initial phone contact. She stopped, seated herself in the underbrush, and removed her satellite cell phone. After entering the number, she waited for the satellite to pick up her signal and connect. Soon, she received her reply:

"_National Security Office_," answered a distracted female voice.

"Hello," Lara said. "I need to speak with Lisa Metzbaum, please."

It felt odd to speak so cordially while surrounded with weeds and insects and squawking birds.

What felt odder, however, was to then be so curtly dismissed:

"_Who is this?_" demanded the receptionist. "_How did you get this number?_"

"I'm a personal friend of Mrs. Metzbaum," insisted Lara. "I must speak with her on a matter of--"

"_Well, this is not a personal number, ma'am_," said the receptionist.

"I know that," replied Lara, "but this is a matter of utmost--"

"_How did you get this number?_"

"Will you not listen to me!" Lara seemed to shout.

Lara, in fact, had _not_ shouted--she had whispered--but, suddenly, all about her in the woods, it was as though she had. A moment earlier, the birds had been squawking and honking and fluttering playfully; but, at her outburst--an instant before her outburst, actually--they flew. They had all flown. Suddenly, they were gone; and the forest had become eerily quiet.

"_Ma'am?_" asked the receptionist, "_ma'am? Are you still there . . ?_"

Lara's eyes scanned the distance. In the silence, she could hear the birds settling into new perches farther away. Safer perches. From her rump in the woods, she stretched her neck to peek over the tops of the ferns. She was confident that she herself was virtually unnoticeable behind her blind of striated fern shadows and deep, luscious, fern green. She searched and searched--listening--until she heard the sounds of leaves rustling in the near distance, and she saw hints of moving stems and fronds.

"I'll call you back," she whispered. She smoothly, slowly, closed the phone and secured it back into her vest's breast pocket.

Lara saw a boy; a twelve year old boy--though he seemed somewhat small for his age. He was brown-skinned: A Peruvian, Lara presumed. His eyes were furtively, anxiously, glancing back and forth across the terrain before him. He was frightened. He gave every sign of being pursued--of being mercilessly pursued--by someone who was as yet unseen. His jeans and windbreaker jacket were urban-looking and ordinary, though dirty and tattered with the grimes of nature. He was lugging a small backpack by a shoulder-strap--clinging to it as though it were his life itself: Every furtive glance one way turned his bag the opposite way, as though he were unconsciously protecting his cargo with his body. His eyes screamed '_mission_.' Whatever he was doing, it would seem to be more important to him than his life itself. Perhaps, Lara thought, it _was_ his life itself. Whoever this boy was, Lara instantly presumed, he was surely _involved_: Whether he was running through these woods to escape or to find her enemies, Lara didn't know--Lara couldn't guess--but one thing seemed certain: He knew who her enemies _were_. He might even know _where_ they were, and _how many_ they were.

It was settled: She had to question him.

"You!" said Lara.

The boy startled seemingly nearly to death--jumping so feverishly that for a split-second it seemed he might split free of his own skin and abandon it altogether. As it was, both his skin, and even his precious bag, seemed only barely able to keep up with his speedy legs as they sent him scrambling for thicker brush. He vanished in nearly the same direction as he had just appeared.

She leaped to her feet and pursued.

She shouted, "_Esperaté!_"--

--which meant 'wait' in Spanish--

--but he wouldn't wait. Instead he moved with all the terror of a rabbit chased by a fox, sprinting through the knee-high underbrush. He dodged in and out among the tree trunks, but his dodging and weaving did nothing but slow him down. She caught up quickly. Soon she was close enough to hear his panting and sobbing. By the time she was within reach of him, she could hear his breath becoming harried and crazy and self defeating, as though even the _thought_ of being caught was blood-curdlingly mortifying. She grabbed his small shoulder and span him, making him trip on his own feet. He fell to his back in the leaves.

"_Esperaté!_" she commanded him.

But he jumped back to his feet and tried to run again.

She was on him in a flash: She grappled him tightly around his waist and pinned him to the ground. She held him, and she could hear him panting desperately--almost whining. She had to all but _crush_ his little body to stop his kicking her.

"_Paraté!_" she growled, meaning 'stop.' "_Paraté! Paraté!_"

"Lemme go!" cried out the boy--in perfect, South-Western U.S. English.

Lara was surprised, and her grip loosened.

He struggled free and tried to bolt--but then he stopped. Though Lara was hardly restraining him at all, he remained in place beneath her on the ground, still as a log.

Spooked by his passiveness, Lara glanced all around herself and jumped with surprise at what she saw.

He was close: So _unbelievably_ close that Lara almost missed focusing her eyes upon him. Only a very small number of human beings had ever gotten so close to Lara Croft without her hearing or seeing them. He was another little boy, one even younger than the one in frozen fear beneath her belly. He was only ten feet away and was naked--other than a simple loincloth. His skin was a darker shade of brown, and his cheeks, chest, and arms were painted ceremoniously.

Though he was partially hiding behind a tree truck, Lara could see that he had mutilations on his face reminiscent of Kini's, though significantly fewer. He was definitely from the same tribe as Kini, and was definitely also a warrior--though clearly not yet the highly-decorated warrior that Kini himself was. He seemed bend upon making up for his apparent inexperience, however, with a sharp spear and an extremely aggressive attitude. Lara had visited many tribal communities before, but she had never seen a native child with expression on his face like this one's. She had seen native children appear suspicious, mistrustful, and even hostile; but this was different. These boy's eyes reminded her of the eyes of a trained guard dog: Ready--_eager_--to attack. Not merely hostile, but _justified_. Fanatical.

The native boy stepped into the open, readying his spear to throw.

"Wait, wait, wait!" pleaded Lara sweetly, rising to her knees and showing her hands passively.

The native's attention thus diverted, the Hispanic-looking American finally bolted out from beneath her. He vanished swiftly into the woods.

The javelin-ready child let the American escape without a flinch, but Lara didn't dare attempt to follow. She didn't dare move an inch. She would make too easy a target on her knees. Maybe she _could_ dodge a spear thrown by a child, but maybe not--it depended on the child. And this child looked fierce.

"It's okay," Lara said, smiling. "I'm not going to hurt you. Put down that spear, little boy. Let's be friends."

And the boy almost seemed to understand. Perhaps not the words, but certainly the tone. He licked his lips, uncertainly. It was as though her pleas had caused the rightness of his cause to partly evaporate. It was as though his sense of duty and his conscience had suddenly begun to whisper conflicting instructions. His first impulse had clearly been to kill her, but her obvious pathos would seem to have changed his heart. Whatever conflicts were operating within him, he was scared; and, for her life, Lara couldn't figure why. What could be so frightening about a woman alone in the woods? His fear must therefore be of something else, but of what? What might a decorated warrior, even a child-warrior, be so terribly frightened of?

Then, suddenly, the temper of the forest changed. The song birds--which had lately returned, steady and sure--broke once more into honks and squeals, and fluttered away. Both Lara and the native boy felt the change at once, and they both glanced about themselves anxiously, as though unaware the other was doing the same. Then, before Lara could react, the little boy's eyes went wide, his hawk-eyed brow furrowed, and his spear-arm flexed to throw--

And a gunshot shattered the jungle's quiet ambiance--making Lara jump with shock. A splash of red spattered across the boy's tiny, naked chest. He went backwards--dead--before his spear could leave his hand.

Lara leaped and span in an instant, ready to _kill_ whoever had murdered the little boy!

She was utterly unprepared for the cold MP5 submachinegun barrel that met her throat the instant she stood and span. Its remorseless nozzle punched against her Adam's apple and shoved her backwards to her rump. Suddenly, all of her hasty wrath went away to a place where she would be unable to find it again for a good, long time.

There were three of them. Three men. All in black.

Their submachineguns were at ready, and their black-capped heads were darting side-to-side, making the pick-ups of their wireless communication headsets seem like one tiny roach-feeler each, probing the way before them. The three men in black had simultaneously emerged from three different directions; smoothly, and somehow silently--even though the underbrush. Two took cover behind tree trunks, and the third--guarding Lara--kneeled in the open, his barrel leveled at her face. Lara was in the middle of their triangle. She was guarded from all directions.

She froze, acquiescently.

They were clearly soldiers. Elite soldiers. They wore black Army uniforms and black leather boots, and they carried NATO-type MP5 submachineguns. In these ways these men seemed like ordinary special operations troops--but in no others. Their equipment was unlike any national military's that Lara had ever studied. She hardly recognized anything they were wearing. Their suspenders and black nylon belts were sleekly loaded with mysterious compartments and unrecognizable gadgets. Their wireless headsets were different from any she had ever seen. Even their sleek, crisp, uniforms would seem to have been the product of some custom tailor. They were well-financed, whoever they were. They were very slick. And there were no identifying marks on anything they were either wearing or carrying.

Yet, by their accents and attitudes, they were very obviously Americans.

"Clear," declared the one pointing the gun into her face, a blond 35-year-old.

The other two stepped smoothly out from behind their trees and entered the open space, holding their weapons tactically at their cheeks, looking around, sighting every direction they faced.

"Clear!" they both finally agreed.

One of the two was an averagely-built, 24-year-old, brown-haired Caucasian; the other a muscular, 30-year-old Black. Judging by the directions from which they had emerged from the woods, it seemed most likely that the brown-head had fired the shot that had killed the native boy. She kept an eye on that one--but came to find herself too intimidated to act.

"Who," she murmured, "who are you . . ?"

"Who's got the guns, lady?" snapped the blond. "Now, who the hell are _you?_"

Lara had hoped she might find at least a _kernel_ of indignation to level at them, but she was gravely disappointed with herself. A surge of tremulous insecurity made her feel too vulnerable to do anything other than sit demurely in the center of them, feeling uncomfortably awkward.

"I'm, well, I'm . . ."

She had no words. She hadn't thought of a story yet. Getting caught hadn't been part of her plan.

Luckily, she was granted a brief reprieve:

There was suddenly a soft chirping sound coming from each man. The two farthest abruptly grabbed the soap-bar shaped plastic devises that all were wearing on cords about their necks. After consulting the devices' subdued plastic screens, the two looked around themselves; the brown-head pointing into the woods in the direction his own device was apparently indicating.

"What you got, Henrick?" asked the blond, having been too busy guarding Lara to consult his own soap-bar screen.

"A hundred-fifty meters," said the pointing man, the child-killer, Henrick.

"That's impossible," said the blond. "He was just _here_. Azimuth?"

"Two-seventy," said the Black.

"Got that, Tripp?" asked the blond, as though to the air around him.

Their headsets chirped, talking into their ears. Their radios' reply was too faint for Lara to overhear, but the three, of course, heard perfectly; and they chuckled sardonically, shaking their heads.

"Well, he's a clever kid, I'll give him that," said the blond. "Reel him in Rico: You've got the correction."

The headsets crackled back another inaudible comment.

The blond then turned his full attention back to Lara:

"Now, who are you, and where did you come from?"

Lara was ready this time.

"I'm a hiker," she declared. "I'm here with friends."

"That so?" said the blond, "and where are they, pray tell?"

"I don't know," said Lara, trying to remain calm and unruffled. She then wondered if it was this very appearance of unnatural calm that was making her seem as suspicious as she obviously did. "I got lost."

"Lost?" sneered Henrick, "out here? That's a bad mistake, girlfriend."

"That's bullshit," snapped the Black. "She came in on that fucking plane."

Lara recalled Uncle Jake's instruction--'poker face'--and she wore one sternly.

"That's a long way down that mountain, Doc," the blond said. "She'd have to be real fucking fast."

"How'd you get here?" snapped Henrick, clearly the least patient of the three.

"Boat," Lara stammered--correcting herself--"Yacht. It's anchored just off-shore. My . . . father . . ."

"And you walked here?" sneered Henrick, "over _those_ mountains?"

"Through the pass," Lara lied. "It's remarkably warm . . . If you keep moving, that is."

"And you didn't see the plane crash?" Henrick asked doubtfully. "Didn't even hear it?"

"Of course I heard it!" Lara gasped. "I saw it, even. I was rather close."

"Most folks would have brought that up right away," the Black, Doc, snapped. "Funny you didn't."

"It hit a mountain and exploded," Lara fumed, recovering at least a vestige of her lost rage. "Besides, if anyone _did_ survive, they can't hardly be in any more trouble than I am, can they?"

That earned her a morose chuckle from the men in black.

The blond was about to ask another question when the woodline rustled and produced two more men in black. One was a short, twenty-two-year-old Hispanic; the other was a twenty-six-year-old brunette Caucasian, tall and lanky. Between them, they were toting the twelve-year-old American that Lara had tackled. They dumped him recklessly in the center of the now boot-trampled clearing, next to Lara--whom the boy eyed viciously.

The little boy was terrified and beaten. Defeated. The sight of all of the guns seemed to crush his will as they toted him in--by the back of his neck. His eyes glanced only once upon the body of the dead native child--flashing over it with unflinching bemusement--before settling timidly upon the ground. Lara noted the American boy's unaffected response to the atrocity. It would seem that casual murder was a behavior that one should _expect_ from their captors.

Lara averted her eyes to a space of ground next to the boy's, feeling a little ashamed.

"That was really impressive, Rainy," said the blond, still pointing his MP5 at Lara's nose. "How _did_ you do that? If it weren't for glamour girl here, we never would have caught you."

The boy, Rainy, bristled furiously and stared more deeply askance.

The men in black, numbering five now, all chucked coldly.

"Who's the hottie?" asked the Hispanic newcomer--the one who had most severely manhandled poor Rainy.

"Don't know," said the blond. "Says she's a hiker."

"What? Out here?" snapped the Hispanic. "That's bullshit."

"That's what _I_ said," chimed Doc.

"I don't know," said the blond. "Why else would she be in the middle of Fucking Nowhere, Peru?"

"Been asking that about _myself_ all day," muttered Doc.

"Please, Cavanaugh," sneered the lanky newcomer. "This is just another fucking surprise."

"Whatever," snapped the blond, Cavanaugh. "I'm calling it in."

"Do that," said Doc.

"Yeah, okay," said Cavanaugh, tapping his headset to change its setting. "Control, this is patrols One and Two . . . Right. There's been a rather interesting development up here. We caught a girl running around loose in the woods . . . No, it's some English chick. Twenty, maybe. Claims she's up here hiking. No bullshit. Advise?"

As their headsets chattered at them, they all simultaneously looked at Lara--and then spontaneously looked away.

Cavanaugh, more cautious now, cleared his throat. He asked, "so, what's your name, then, lady?"

Lara had this part well-practiced.

"Alicia," she said, "Alicia Silverstone."

The others seemed dubious for a moment, but Cavanaugh seemed to accept her lie without hesitation.

"Alright, Alicia," Cavanaugh said. He then addressed the others: "Let's bind 'em and move."

* * *

They were being marched downhill. It was clear that their eventual destination would be in the bottom-most middle of the valley. Lara remembered the great crater lake she had viewed from the air and from the mountainside, and she figured they must be heading towards its shore. There was likely a camp there, though they had not stated so. They had bound Lara's and Rainy's wrists with plastic binds, and they were making them march in silence in the middle of their patrol formation, two men in black a few meters ahead while the other three marched a few meters behind.

In all truth, Lara could have broken free from them at any time she chose. She little doubted that she could outrun them, given their load of heavy-looking equipment, their visible fatigue, and their likely inferior physical conditioning. But there were advantages to being a prisoner, Lara had come to decide. There was more than one way to do reconnaissance. As a prisoner, she could get to know them. She had already learned their names: Cavanaugh: the thoughtful one; Rico: the noisy one; Tripp: the cynical one; Henrick: the child-killer; and Doc: the one whose quiet anger made him seem to her the most dangerously unpredictable of the five. She watched Doc and Henrick closely where they walked, sharing the forward-observer 'point' position, a few meters ahead.

Her fellow prisoner was named Rainy, but there seemed little more to be known about him. That is, there was little it would seem he intended to reveal about himself. He and Lara were close enough to whisper to one-another, but he not spoken a word since their capture. The men in black had treated him roughly, and he clearly feared their slightest displeasure. They had taken his precious backpack from him, and had struck him with closed fists whenever he didn't instantly comply with even their slightest commands. He didn't seem interested in conversation with Lara nor anyone else. Lara felt certain that he blamed her for his own misfortune in being captured. He wouldn't even meet her gaze.

Though it was sad that Rainy was so sullen, it was also, perhaps, an advantage to Lara, all in all. The lack of distractions was making it easier for her to study the others--to catalogue their tendencies, to analyze their behavior. She was watching and listening for when they stepped over branches versus when they marched through them. She was studying how they balanced themselves on unsteady terrain. She was taking note of who of them walked the farthest forward, and who made the most decisions. She was trying to determine which of them the others treated as leader. Most importantly, she was prodding them, subtly, for hints about their loyalties and their belief in this cause--whatever it was.

These were the same tactics that she applied against her sports opponents. Before meets, she would dine with her competitors, she would walk with them, and she would converse with them. She would study their manner of dress, the tone of their voices, their gait, and whatever else seemed pertinent. She would search for anything and everything that might reveal a hint about their emotional strengths and weaknesses, their physical flaws, and their probable tactics. These may have been a new type of opponents, these men in black, but the exercise itself was no different; and her investigation revealed much.

Black Army uniforms. Americans. Black leather boots. NATO-type MP5 submachineguns. Five men, each of seemingly equal status, despite Cavanaugh's apparent nominal leadership. All were highly trained, confident, and elite (a factor which might explain their leaderlessness: There would seem to be no need for regimentation in a group such as this, where individual competence was simply the norm. Most likely, their only real leader was their 'Control' on their radio--she had caught his name as 'Murphy'). Whoever these men were, they were certainly not a part of any of the overly-regimented national military forces that Lara was familiar with. And they weren't devoted to their cause, either. What dedication they had seemed to stem not from gut-level determination, but rather from pure confidence in their own competence and skill. They were not dedicated at all, strictly speaking: They were merely sure of themselves. They were possessed with a wickedly cruel sort of confidence--one which sprung from the utter, arrogant, certainty that their side simply _cannot possibly_ _lose_.

Everything pointed at it: _Mercenaries_. Just like Uncle Jake had feared.

But who had hired them? Even _combined_, the raw capital of every indigenous worker's group in the Third World would have been unable to finance the hiring and equipping of such a unit. The research and development monies represented by their equipment alone would bankrupt anyone outside of the First World. But who in the First World _would_ have hired them? Who in the First World would want the destruction of Croft Industries? Certainly not the United States, nor any other major government. They would have had nothing to gain: Croft Industries' tax residuals alone contribute too greatly to the First World's international economy.

On the other hand, there were any number of private companies that might have stood to benefit if her grandfather were discredited, and Croft Industries ruined. Either Henderson Industries or Intellicorp International could easily have financed these troops--but both company's owners had always been on friendly terms with her grandfather, socially speaking. Still, business was business. Anything was possible. She would have to keep an open mind.

Her thoughts must have slowed her.

"Alright, pick it up," said Cavanaugh

She quickened her pace.

Since her hands were bound, she had decided to deliberately walk and behave awkwardly; as if having her hands tied somehow made her helpless. If she were to turn on them at an unexpected moment and have them be surprised and underestimate her, she had to be sure she seemed as much like a dumb tourist as possible. Still, she saw no possible harm in continuing to prod at them.

"You can't do this," she told them, "I'm a citizen of the United Kingdom."

"Yes," replied Tripp, "we did guess that."

"Try to relax," said Cavanaugh.

"Yeah, Alicia," added Henrick. "Try to relax."

Something about his comment made Lara grimace bitterly. Something truly vicious seemed implied.

Her confusion must have been visible on her face because Rainy was looking scornfully up to her, shaking his head contemptuously. It was the first he'd met her eyes since their capture. He whispered something Lara couldn't hear.

"What?" she whispered back.

"You're a dumb bitch," he repeated, slightly louder this time.

"What did you say?" Lara meekly protested.

"'Alicia Silverstone'?" he mocked. "That's a movie star."

Lara _had_ wondered why the name had come to her mind so easily. Still, it apparently had worked.

"They seem to believe it," she whispered.

"You're a dumb bitch," he said.

"Alright, knock off the chatter," said Cavanaugh.

In the distance, Lara could hear a loud, rumbling waterfall; and she saw that the terrain ahead was about to make a sharper, steeper decline. A pass was opening up before them, and she could see a segment of a powerful, narrow, river running left to right at the bottom. Across the river, through the branches of the trees in between, Lara could see a flat clearing where six or seven military-style tents stood, along with five or six diesel-powered electrical generators, and a 30-foot, free-standing radio antenna. There was also another man in black in the clearing: He was kneeling and making adjustments to a large radio transmitter.

And there was something else.

Lara might only have described it by comparing it to the Apollo moon-landing vehicle that NASA had used in the 1960's and 1970's. Though it had strikingly similar proportions to the famous spacecraft, it had clearly been crudely fabricated from various plates and parts, and it was only about five feet tall. It was obviously a hastily contrived device, constructed without blueprint, and wired-up by hand. There were exposed gaps in its hull through which wires and circuit boards could be seen. Lines of spliced, hastily-tapped wires and cables were winding up and down various segments of its structure--including its legs--giving the entire contraption a thoroughly improvised appearance.

"What is that?" Lara whispered.

Rainy knew exactly what she was talking about. He risked a tentative glance over his shoulder to be sure the men in black weren't close enough to overhear him when he replied, "an interlocutor."

"A what?" asked Lara.

"It's--"

"Hey!" snapped Henrick, marching at Rainy from the front of the formation. "The man said to shut your damned mouth!"

Rainy obeyed, sullenly.

He dared, however, to add one more whimper: "We're dead."

Lara let her young comrade retreat yet again, semi-safely into himself, while she continued exploring the steadily expanding view before her. As they descended through the pass, more and more of the space beyond the river became available to her eyes. She could see that the camp's clearing was actually part of an island. The stream immediately before her--however deep and fast--was only a _part_ of the valley's main river. Past the tents, past the generators, past the radio tower, and past the moonlander-thing, there was another, equally powerful stream. The island before her was but one obstruction among many along the much larger river's vast course. A number of smaller tributaries fed the water system from the far side, while the near-side was largely provided by a stunning, 40-foot waterfall--whose vapor-rainbows glittered spectacularly overhead as she approached the shore. She saw a 50-foot cliff overlooking her waterfall, with a path leading to the overlook from the shore; but the men in black were leading her the opposite way, and she crossed the wild rapids on a crude rope bridge.

As she crossed, her heart sank and chilled with fright.

Even having prepared herself, Lara couldn't suppress a tiny yelp.

Her Uncle Jake was on the island, too. He had been below her vision until she had ascended the bridge. He was on his knees--his hands tied behind his back, his arm in a sling, his head bandaged, his designer suit ripped and filthy. He was cowed, and was looking at the ground with a forlorn expression just like Rainy's: Beaten and afraid. Lara also saw Kini in the clearing, now appropriately dressed: In a black Army uniform, just like the rest. He was hovering over Jake, holding an MP5 threateningly above her uncle's bent head. At the sight, Lara sighed in anguish, and couldn't check a sympathetic glance at Rainy--who wore an oddly tentative, quizzical expression.

She must have slowed again, because Cavanaugh gruffly barked: "Let's go! Move!"

As they entered the camp circle, the man in black who had been operating the main radio--presumably 'Murphy'--swiftly approached. He was older than the rest, sterner-looking, and, judging by his face, was utterly pitiless.

"You must be Murphy," Lara said, but he didn't regard her.

"We found her up by the--" reported Cavanaugh, but Murphy didn't regard him either.

To Lara's shock, without a word, Murphy marched past Cavanaugh and Doc and snatched a hold of her tangled pony-tail. He wordlessly dragged her, mercilessly, across the circle while she fought to suppress fifteen years of martial arts training and reflexes in order to not rip his ugly arm from its socket at that very instant. She suppressed her anger and controlled her pain, reminding herself how much more she needed to know about these people. She couldn't afford to allow herself to indulge her instincts. Not yet. She let him drag her; and he delivered her next to her uncle, where she was compelled to fall to her knees and to assume a similarly passive prisoner's posture.

"Lara," Jake said as Murphy left earshot, marching back toward the others, "I thought you were dead."

Kini had been hovering overhead, but his attention was clearly drifting now towards the other men in black, and their other prisoner: The frightened little boy, Rainy. Lara risked a brief exchange.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

"I'm fine," Jake replied. "What have you figured out?"

How well her Uncle Jake knew her, Lara mused. He knew she would be calculating and planning, thinking this through from the moment it began. She was happy she could count on such an ally as him. Even though he was not the warrior that she was, Jacob Corbin had not become an executive senior officer in Croft Industries by being a slouch. She could count on his courage and his brains. It was time to pool resources.

"Mercenaries," she whispered, desperate to keep her voice below Kini's ears. "I don't think there's more than seven, including your friend, here."

"What are we going to do?" Jake asked.

"Leave it to me," Lara replied.

By then, she had begun to note the exchange taking place among the others--Rainy (poor, hapless, Rainy)'s interrogation:

"Where is it?" Murphy asked Cavanaugh as he returned from brutalizing Lara.

Rainy was looking only at the ground, clearly sensing what now was coming.

"It's right here," Rico gloated, opening Rainy's bag so that the older man could look inside.

"It in one piece?" Murphy asked.

"Seems to be," said Rico.

"Good," grunted Murphy viciously, reaching back a long arm and slapping Rainy hard across the face.

The boy dropped to his knees and burst into tears.

Murphy, as though aware of no one else around him, let another violent hand fly, closed-fisted this time, striking the little boy across face and head, knocking him the rest of the way to the ground. On his side, wailing voicelessly, stricken with terror and pain, the little boy gazed up at his attacker for the first time, eyes streaming with tears.

Lara desperately wanted to act--to intervene--but there was a quiet defiance in the child that helped encourage her to do what she still needed to force herself to do: Remain patient, await an proper opportunity, and learn what she would need to know in order to _finish_ this battle, and win.

Jake must have sensed her feelings: He placed a warm hand upon her knee to help calm her.

"Wait . . . Wait . . !" whispered Jake. He seemed as anxious as Lara. "What the fuck is he doing?"

In the meantime, even the other men in black seemed unhappy with Murphy's behavior.

"Look," demanded Cavanaugh. "Are we done? Can we go home now?"

"Not yet," replied Murphy, glaring down coldly over little Rainy. "A little bit of unfinished business."

Rainy shivered visibly.

"You know what I'm talking about, don't you Little Chief?" Murphy snarled.

"What _are_ you talking about, Lieutenant?" asked Doc.

"Is this necessary?" asked Cavanaugh.

"You little fucker!" Murphy hissed at Rainy, kicking the little boy in his ribs and causing him to coil into a ball of shaking, hysterical terror.

"Oh, fuck; oh, fuck," murmured Jake, his hand on Lara's thigh _clenching_ in rage.

Lara tried to comfort him, whispering, "Don't worry, I have a plan. Get ready to move."

Lara could tell that Murphy hadn't kicked the boy with much force. It was as though the kick were more for spite than injury. It was a cruel and malicious attack, meant to intimidate and terrorize, but not to kill. Clearly, they needed him alive for some reason; and, when Murphy kicked at him again--and again--to similar effect, it seemed obvious that his objective was being well-met. Lara watched for an opening.

"Hey!" snapped Cavanaugh. "Is this _necessary_?"

"You tell me?" barked Murphy, though he finished his statement in Rainy's direction: "Three men, you little fucker! Three good men are dead because of _you_!"

But Rainy then rose slightly from his fetal coil, his face a mix of sheer terror and strange defiance. His sudden, seemingly inexplicable ire caused even the hardest of the men in black to turn a shifty, nervous--perhaps even guilty--glance past Lara, toward the tents. Lara herself joined them in their almost unconscious, seemingly reflexive, turn of the head. There was a pile of body-bags in use nearby. There were at least a half-dozen of them: Stacked neatly, discretely, professionally. Six corpses: Tucked away behind a tent, almost out of view. Something told Lara that Murphy's three were to be counted separately from this other little body-count. She seethed in an almost uncontainable rage.

"Lara, don't--" whispered Jake, "Lara, wait!"

Murphy reared to kick Rainy again when Tripp said, "Shit, Murphy, if I knew you were just going to beat him to death down here, I would have let Rico have him back on the hill."

"No," sighed Murphy, relenting after one more spiteful kick.

Lara managed to calm herself, once she saw that his assault had come to a pause.

Jake sighed with audible relief.

"We need him," Murphy explained, spitting at Rainy. "We _do_ need him."

Murphy and Cavanaugh locked eyes for a prolonged, contentious moment.

"Why?" snapped Doc.

"Some kind of encryption or a virus or some shit," bellowed Murphy; kneeling, and seizing Rainy by the collar. He yanked the little boy up and off of his feet, holding him in air while be snarled: "Supposed to be your little going-away present, right Little Chief?"

Rainy pinched his eyes shut and looked away, clearly awaiting the worst.

"Sounds like a technical problem," said Cavanaugh.

"Yeah," agreed Henrick. "What's that got to do with us?"

"Oh, you'll like this, Henrick," Murphy said, sadistically delighted. "You too, Rico."

"What?" asked Rico.

"Little Rainy Blue-Sky here is the only one who _can_ remove it," Murphy explained.

Rainy's eyes began to run with tears.

"And that's what he'll do," continued Murphy, "or I'll give him to Rico."

"Ho! Ho!" cackled Henrick, apparently only _then_ seeing where the conversation was leading. "Shit, yes!"

"Rainy," explained Murphy, "Charley and Rico were _friends_."

Rico was nodding, and grinning wickedly. Both his and Henrick's knives were already in their owner's hands. Rico and Henrick were caressing the edges of their eager blades with their thumbs, testing for sharpness, priming for action. Henrick smiled a sick and evil smile.

"I didn't kill anybody!" Rainy finally managed to wail.

"Not technically," Cavanaugh said.

"You're going to fix my operating system," Murphy commanded.

"And you'll let me go?" Rainy pleaded, desperately.

"I'll. . ." Murphy lied, "_think_ about it."

"You're going to kill me!" Rainy sobbed.

"Oh, Rainy," Murphy said, lowering the boy back to his feet, though keeping a firm hold of his collar. "You're dead already. You knew that _last_ night. The only question is how you go: Quick, like the others, or . . ."

"Or slow, mother_fucker_," said Rico.

"Real slow," added Henrick.

"What'll it be?" asked Murphy.

"Fuck, man," growled Henrick, moving toward Rainy, his knife poised to cut, "he'll have _plenty_ of time to change his mind . . !"

It was finally more than Lara could bear.

While all eyes were on Henrick and Rico and the hyperventilating child--even Uncle Jake's--even Kini's--Lara sprang like a flash, striking like lightening. Feeling Kini's attention a moment away from her, she leaped and span to her feet in a single instant, right beneath Kini's nose. As she launched, her bound hands took Kini's own combat knife directly from its leg-sheath behind her. In a half-second, her bonds were cut, and her hands were loose. In a full-second, she had vaulted straight upward--and was upside-down in the air over Kini's head, clutching the collar of his uniform. As though she were a club that Kini were wielding wildly, she swung over his head, using his collar as her pivot. When she came down behind him, her momentum pulled him violently off-balance to his rear, arching him helplessly backwards into her arms--where she was ready with his own knife to press against his Jugular. Her back-flip completed flawlessly, she removed the MP5 from Kini's limp hand as easily as any trophy from any competitor's.

"How about that fight, _now_, big man?" she hissed, his high, ugly head triumphantly pulled down to hers, her lips at its ear.

"Lara!" cried Uncle Jake, clearly stunned by her speed, and in awe of what she had just accomplished.

"Hang on, Jake," she growled. "It will all be over soon."

"Sooner than you think," snarled back Kini.

Kini wasn't struggling; but, to Lara's confoundment, he seemed utterly unfazed by his predicament. Her arm was locked around his neck, and their faces were inches apart, and her razor-sharp knife was drawing tiny drops of blood from his throat; yet, his eyes blazed at hers not with terror, but with a fire of intermixed anticipation and blood-lust. Madly, his expression seemed fraught with eagerness, not anxiety; madly, his expression seemed to lack even a _hint_ of fear. Far from cowing to her, the giant native was smiling excitedly.

"Drop them!" Lara Croft commanded the other men in black, pointing Kini's former MP5 their way, her unhesitating blade pressed obviously into the flesh of Kini's throat. If they might believe nothing else, she meant them to thoroughly understand that she meant business with Kini--_first_ Kini--and then all of them, too, in turn: "Don't underestimate me! I'd rather just _kill_ you all."

There was moment's hesitation; but, eventually, in a rapid cacophony, their submachineguns slipped from their hands and hit the ground.

Cavanaugh, Doc, and the rest stood in utter aghast, profoundly incredulous of what they had just seen--or, rather, hadn't had eyes _fast_ enough to see--Lara Croft do. Most frightened of all was Murphy himself: His lips trembled at the sight of her: At the sight of big Kini held, bent, in her hands. When he froze, and his weapon fell, it wasn't as though it were by his own will at all; rather, it was as though he were compelled to drop his MP5 by some mesmerizing spell. Like a garden of statues, Murphy and the other five did nothing while Rainy reclaimed his backpack and ran clear of them, and Uncle Jake removed the knife directly from Henrick's motionless hand--freeing himself and Rainy from their bonds.

"You just couldn't wait, could you, Lara?" asked Jake, now gathering up the dropped MP5's and looping their slings over his shoulder. "You're going to be the death of me, girl."

"What should I have done, Jake? Wait?" Lara asked. "And let them carve that boy like a Christmas roast?"

The little boy in question had spent the previous seconds examining the faces around him, clearly attempting to make sense of what had just happened--and was still happening. By his expression, it was clear that things still made no sense to him. Even while Lara began to press Kini, her captive, forward toward the rope bridge, Rainy darted in front of her to petition her attention, clinging to his bag urgently and anxiously, his tears of pain and mortal dread erased and replaced by new, more fervid emotions.

"I don't know what's going on," little Rainy said, urgently, "but there's some things you should know!"

"What's the plan, Lara?" asked Jake.

"Later," Lara snapped at both, fearing being overheard by their former captives--who stood by patiently, eagerly listening in. "Out of hearing. Then we'll talk. We'll talk about everything."

"But--!" pleaded Rainy.

"Shush!" Lara snapped. "Not here!"

"But--!" pleaded Rainy.

"Shush!" Lara insisted. "I know what I'm doing!"

Rainy relented, with a last dubious look. He glanced at her, said, "you better," and he dashed across the rope-bridge to the mainland. He waited there while Jake finished gathering the submachineguns and Lara finished her face-off with the men in black.

"_Please_, try something," she hissed at them. "Try _any_thing. I'm _begging_ you to."

And she, Jake, and her prisoner--by his throat--, joined Rainy on the far bank of the river.

"Jake, cover him," Lara said, and she shoved Kini a few feet up the path toward the clifftop.

Kini defiantly resumed his full six-foot, six-inch height. He seemed less intimidating, however, when Jacob Corbin pointed an cocked MP5 submachinegun at him.

Lara turned back towards the other men in black, now on the opposite bank.

"Oh, and--" but she finished her sentence with gunfire:

She razed the radio until it split apart into scraps; and she razed the ropes of the bridge before her, causing it to shred and collapse and be washed downstream. Suddenly, the soldiers on the island were stranded and voiceless. Throughout, they remained like statues: At her mercy.

She reminded them, "I'd just as soon kill the lot of you, you bastards. Keep your hands where I can always see them."

It was clear from their expressions that there was no need for her to explain the nature of her threat. The radio had been a fairly small target, and she had destroyed it expertly from 50 meters distant. She was a crack shot, and they all understood the implications of her words. Even as she pressed her prisoner and her compatriots up the path toward the cliff, she was in full control of the island for as long as her targets were in view--and, in the open as they were, there was no place for them to hide or take cover. Their expressions subtly shifted from incredulity at her agility to incredulity at her sheer _gall_, but the theme of their expressions remained irreducibly consistent: Incredulity--_utter_ incredulity--and petrified, unconspiring obedience.

It was nice, the way things were going. Her plan had come together better than she'd dared hope.

"Don't try anything, you," she barked at Kini. "Don't give me an excuse. I'll take it."

While Jake covered Kini directly, and the group blazed up the trail toward the overlook, Lara walked backwards--her MP5 always covering the men in black on the other side of the river. She glanced over her shoulder frequently to check Kini--and she kept her wits about her generally, expecting surprises--but as the slope inclined, and her vantage over her foes improved, her anxieties gradually began to lessen. She finally began to heed the young boy in front of her, who had been unceasingly trying to get her attention since she had first crossed the river.

"Listen to me, Lara," Rainy whispered. "I've got to tell you something!"

"What?" she replied.

"No," he insisted, pointing behind her--in Kini's direction. "Away from _him_."

"He's no problem," she assured him. "Not anymore."

"Why are you such a dumb bitch?" he gasped. "Just listen to me!"

"Rainy, you--"

"You've got to talk to me--_away_ from here!"

But that would mean leaving the enemy unguarded. Obviously, it was out the question.

"I can't be in two places at once!" she said.

"They know who you are!" Rainy said.

"I know what I'm doing, Rainy," she told him.

"No you don't!"

"Lara," interrupted Jake. "What's your plan?"

"Lara!" Rainy gasped plaintively.

"Shush," she said.

"Lara!"

"Trust me, Rainy!"

"Lara," said Jake, more urgently. "The plan?"

By then, they had reached the end of the path: The cliff overlooking the waterfall.

The overlook was breathtaking. As Lara moved, backwards, onto the cliff's platform, she was greeted by a stunning view. Her height now taller than many of the trees', she could see well into the center of the valley. Lara could see the huge lake, and a stretch of additional forest beyond. She could see a spider web-network of fast, narrow rivers feeding into the great blue reservoir, branching and joining like veins pulsing through plush green flesh. She saw twilight falling down from the peaks of the mountains between her and the horizon, above and all around; their long shadows falling across the land and pushing night towards her like a dark, spreading pool. On the island below all that splendor, she saw six tiny faces looking up after her, still incredulous, still watching--still motionless and obedient. Lara waved to them.

"The plan is simple, Jake," Lara finally replied, breaking her oversight of the island for a quick glance back at him. "We have them, presuming this is all of them. Even if not, without their main transmitter, they won't be calling any reinforcements anytime soon. We hold them; we guard them--we take turns if necessary. What they didn't know is that I still have my satellite cell phone with me."

"It works?" Jake asked.

"Yes," Lara replied. "I already made contact once, but I couldn't complete a message."

"Then no one knows anything yet?" Jake asked, anxiously.

"No, not yet," Lara replied, watching the men in black like a hawk. "But its a simply a matter of--"

"That's what I wanted to know," said Jake, his voice no longer anxious.

Then, something about the men far below seemed to change. Suddenly, though inexplicably, she saw not the timidity, nor the conqueredness, nor the fear and misgiving that she wanted to see. She saw instead something quite different indeed: She saw _anticipation_. They seemed to be _waiting_ for something--not cowering, as they had seemed to be doing two seconds before. This difference in their demeanor was genuine; but in objective fact, the actual expressions on the soldiers' faces hadn't changed at all.

Then, _finally_, Lara genuinely heard Rainy's plaintive voice:

"_Lara!_"

"Don't turn around, Lara," Jake Corbin said.

Though her back was to him, Lara could feel it in his voice. Corbin was pointing a machinegun at her. She then heard the sound of another machinegun being lifted from a shoulder's load of others, and knew that Kini had just regained a weapon as well.

"Uncle Jake?" murmured Lara, perceiving all of the clues and signs in hindsight, and mentally punishing herself for having ignored them.

"Alright, Rainy," said Corbin. "Take Lara's weapon from her. Don't move, Lara."

Lara felt her MP5 slipping from her grasp and heard it fall from Rainy's hands to the dirt at her feet. Rainy was at her arm, but her eyes seemed locked on the far away soldiers, far below; watching her from their island. She couldn't bring herself to look at Rainy. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. She couldn't bear them.

"I told you so," Rainy whispered.

"Don't blame poor Lara," Corbin said, "the poor girl couldn't have known."

"I knew," hissed Rainy.

There was pause: Perhaps Corbin had replied to Rainy with a shrug.

"Why?" pleaded Lara, hearing his voice, but no longer able to picture his face in her mind. "Why, Uncle Jake? Why?"

"'Why?'" Corbin replied. "Lara, this was never supposed to happen. I blew the fuel, I blew the instruments. You had a phone. You were supposed to go down on the water and go home. You weren't supposed to get involved."

"But I am involved, Uncle," she said, playing her last card, "and I'm going to make this telephone call."

She reached into her vest pocket, and slowly removed her phone.

"Lara . . ." warned Rainy.

"Give me the phone, Lara," Corbin quietly commanded.

Lara's heart was pounding, but she opened the phone and pressed the button to re-dial her National Security Agency contact. The phone chirped audibly.

"Don't push me, Lara," Corbin warned. "You have no idea what's at stake. I love you; but I _will_ kill you."

"_Hello?_" said the same receptionist's voice.

But at Lara's first breath of reply--

Rainy screamed--"_No!_"--and shoved her and him both over the cliff.

That very instant, the place where they had been standing was being criss-crossed with machinegun fire.

The last thing Lara heard before the sounds of rapid water filled her hearing, and the feeling of swift, long falling consumed her mind, was Corbin's angry scream--her own name, _screamed_--mixed, madly, with Kini's, delighted, cackling laughter.


	6. Chapter Five: Ablutions

"_Hey, hey, hey, hey_

_What'cha doin'_

_Where you coming from?_

_Hey, hey, hey_

_Where you been hiding_

_Been missing more than some_

"_Took a ride when I should have walked_

_Got there why too fast_

_Should have listened instead of talked_

_First become the last . . ._"

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER FIVE:** **"**Ablutions.**"**

Blinding white foam washed over her and swept her over the waterfall. The jarring, almost electric cold hit her like a shockwave. But, as though to add injury to insult, her body's sudden numbness seemed only meek complement to the tribulations already unleashing themselves within her mind. She was so blind to herself, so stupefied before the shattering blinds of her own inner falsehoods--her false knowledge, her false actions, her false certainties--that she lost her cell phone without even feeling it go.

She had forgotten even to breathe.

Within her mind she was undergoing so profound a series of mental transformations that the mere outward trauma of her fall had been entirely overshadowed. The instant the shooting had started, something within her mind had snapped and it was as though the cement that had held all of her mental pieces together had somehow crumbled at the shock. She had lost herself, every part of herself; even the most dangerous part to lose: her resolve to survive. Though the bottom-waters' refluxing, endlessly recursing undercurrent whirled her and whirled her like a dress in a washing machine, instead of proper panic, she felt a surging calm. Though perfectly cognizant of the danger she faced, she felt as though she were being cleansed, and she simply accepted it. Along with her mind, she could feel her angst being washed away--and her guilt, and her shame, and her regrets. Her whole life was being cleaved. She was drowning. The entire big ugly universe was collapsing down to this one tiny space of blurry rocks and plain white foam. Nothing future nor past would soon penetrate. She didn't care that it meant death. It was a satisfying annihilation.

Lara was facing the end of twenty-one years of arrogant stupidity. She had been awakened to herself by the startling sound of machinegun fire--bullets intended for the back of her head by the one human being (she had suddenly realized) she had ever really trusted. Perhaps the only one she had ever really loved. Jake had been the glue (or, perhaps, his esteem for _her _had been the glue) that had been all that had sustained what she now knew had been an incredibly fragile personality. From her fresh vantage, through horror, she could finally see herself for the fool she truly was. How could she have been so ignorant? So vainglorious?

Coming here had been like jumping into the proverbial black box: She knew nothing about what she might find, and yet she had fancied herself and its better and its master. 'Rescue' Uncle Jake? She cursed the pride--the vanity--of her blathering, blind, stupid little brain. How could she have been so deluded as to fancy herself the savior of anything or anyone? How could she possibly have imagined that she could know all of the answers _and_ all of the questions? Her presumption had _worse _than made matters worse!

She blamed herself for everything, and rightfully so. How might things have gone had she simply been sensible about her role in things? That is, had she been _capable_ of such sensibility? She might have used her phone to call in _real _soldiers to deal with these cretins. There would certainly be at least two fewer bodies on ground (perhaps even _three _fewer--but the third mattered the least in any case). It was entirely her fault that number-two's body was in jeopardy in the first place: What had Cavanaugh said? '_Never would have caught him if it weren't for you._'

Rainy struggled upward, stroking against the foam.

Surviving without her.

Rainy didn't need Lara.

Jake didn't need Lara.

Lara didn't need Lara.

She knew the inevitable gunshots would soon come and slice her and the boy both to bloody ribbons. In anguish, Lara knew this fate was her _life_--the whole meaning of her life--perfectly encapsulated in a single pointless moment. The final, futile, meaning of it all:

Her wasted efforts.

Her forsworn friendships.

Her cynical analysis.

Her trivial life.

Of every second of her tomorrow-would-be-twenty-one-years' worth of massed accomplishments and empty memories. Of her full personal schedule and her cool, vacant heart. Of all of her self-assuredness and all of her self-evasion. Of all of her truth for facts' sake and supremacy for its own. Of all her fits of 'righteous indignation' that had been the tantrums of a conceited temper and nothing more. Of all of her drive, and of all of her compulsion: Of all of her striving to **_be_**: To _be_ the best, to _be_ the fastest, to _be_ the strongest, to _be_ the smartest, to _be_ the greatest. Throughout her life, she had been like a falling star--a spectacular thing, burning brilliantly--but doing nothing of importance for anyone: Not for her grandfather, not for herself, and certainly not for the little boy whose ankles were just out of reach above her head.

This oh-so-important life of hers, ultimately, had had no meaning at all; and, symbolically, this mission to save her uncle had likewise been a mere outburst of her own impulsive vanity. There had been no enlightenment for her to find here; no moral imperatives to fulfill. There was nothing here but a pointless death--and how dare she have presumed otherwise! Even if the enemy's bullets couldn't reach her there at the bottom of the river, her drowning would only make this thing more appropriate: Only _significant_ people warranted execution.

She wished she'd just black out.

She didn't deserve to breathe.

* * *

Rainy hit the water stroking, afraid as though the bullets might re-direct themselves in mid-air and chase him over the cliff.

He went down so quickly that he almost forgot to suck in air, and he clung tenaciously to what air he had--hoping against all hope that the stomping boots of the thousands of gallons-per-minute following him wouldn't pound his lungs empty once he hit bottom. He squirmed around and around the instant he felt the rocks, kicking and reaching and grabbing and stroking, but he found that the water wasn't like liquid at all. Rather, it was like a sort of exploding, foaming effervescence: a vigorous maelstrom that was impossible to swim or even see through. He couldn't tell if he was moving or standing still. Every direction he groped after looked the same as every other, and the currents always pulled him a dozen ways differently than how he wished to go. He might have panicked, but breathlessness had given him a queer sort of single-mindedness. The instant he hit the rocky bottom, he found himself launching from a boulder and bursting his way through the turbulence imprisoning him.

He broke through to the air with a gulp.

His face barely breaking the surface and his brain still half-drowned, he felt as though he were swallowing a gallon of river water at each desperate gasp. He flailed about for anything nearby that might lift him away from the currents and the constant jerk of the undertow. He kicked, and he stroked, and he coughed, reaching for the shore; but there was nothing helpful within reach. His body, it seemed, had only been lifted up from the falls to be whipped about the rapids and driven hard downstream. Still, having miraculously freed himself from the fall's deadly pit, Rainy quickly regained the presence of mind to look around himself and see--

_the Dumb Bitch._

She was beneath him, seeming to hover in the river's surging, coursing, crystalline depths. Her eyes were glaring up at him lucidly, as though she were somehow immune to the undertow's violence. She seemed stunned. Perhaps she was in shock from the cold water; or from the sudden shove off of a cliff--which had _brought_ her to the cold water. _His_ shove. A shove which had saved her life. Had she forgotten that? Those cool, blank eyes were examining him distantly, indifferently. What was he supposed to have done? Jumped alone? Left her to die? What did she expect? She had tried to make phone call while Corbin had a gun to her back--what had she been expecting? What had she been thinking?

She had been thinking that she had Rainy to _cover _her back, _that's_ what she had been thinking.

It would start all over again now, because of him.

She had _had_ them. She had had both of them. The two worst: The murderer and the monster--the two together, in a neat package. How had she done it? It was amazing. Like watching an action movie: Jackie Chan with tits. Had it been staged? Might Corbin and Kini have actually _allowed_ her to do that to them? Corbin had said he wanted to be sure that she hadn't yet called for help, but that was only afterward. She could have killed that big ugly bastard the second it had started. She could have killed them all. She could have ended the whole ordeal--no muss, no fuss! She could have taken him safely back home. If only he'd been man enough to cover her back as she had needed him to. If only he'd had the courage to stand up to Jacob Corbin.

Jacob Corbin was a monster. Drunk with power and _carte blanche_. The worst kind of ego-maniac: the kind not obsessed with himself, but obsessed, rather, with his _Cause_: His holy crusade, his destiny before God, that no power can resist; and that no life, no civilization, and no national sovereignty can outweigh. His Cause that justifies terrorism, murder, extortion, and genocide. That justifies leaving Rainy all alone in the world, without anyone he ever loved still living. And that will justify hunting him down, to torture him and murder him, in the holy name of God, Country, and Manifest Destiny.

Across his shoulder--blessedly still across his shoulder--was his only ticket out. If Rainy could get out alive--**_if_** Rainy could get out alive--he would have a story to tell that no one would believe. That he didn't know if even _he_ really believed. A story that would make no newsbriefs, sell no headlines, instigate no investigations. A story that no one of any authority whatever would touch with a ten-foot pole. The accusations ran too deeply. The implications were too unthinkable. The realities were too fantastic to be considered.

But, this thing in the bag on his shoulders…it was his saving grace. It was his only hope. It was more than merely evidence, it was his only hope for life. Even free, far away from this unthinkable place, begging for sanctuary among police and bureaucrats and what he hoped to find left of his family, if he lacked this thing--this _one_ thing--he would one day awaken with his throat slit, and he would bleed to death in the quiet dark. He would disappear from the face of the Earth as though he had never existed.

Because he never really had.

* * *

Corbin couldn't believe what he saw at the river-side.

Though he had leaped at the cliff after his once-captives, their wiggling little bodies had escaped his sights as they had gone over the falls. By the time he reached the precipice, they were racing downstream and were well beyond his range--but not yet beyond his men's. Still, to Corbin's confoundment and annoyance, his men only _hesitated _there in the clearing--gawking instead of shooting. Little doubt they were wondering where their MP5's had gone and where their self-respect was heading. He scowled with disappointment in them.

He had been promised the most fearsome troops in the world: The best, the brightest, and the downright _meanest_. Only the finest soldiers in the world would be able to accomplish what he would be asking of them. Only the most loyal, the most patriotic, would do: The most faithful to the Democratic Experiment. When their nation had been founded two hundred years ago, after all, Capitalist Democracy hadn't really even been invented yet. It was an experiment. An experiment that the nay-sayers had proclaimed doomed to fail. In Corbin's mind, this Project was nothing more than the natural continuation of that noble experiment; and there must be no nay-sayers on his team. Ten minutes ago, there hadn't been any. Well, none _left_. But that was before his loyal soldiers had made an enemy of Lara Croft.

Corbin had been deliberately keeping Lara out of this. She had been his secret weapon--his ace-in-the-hole. Where he would lead today, she had been meant to _follow_,tomorrow. In the right place at the right time, Lara Croft was supposed to have become queen of the world--a world he had wished to create for her. That he _owed_ to her. Only her genius could have invented this Project, and, therefore only her wisdom had right to rule over it, after him. But she was too idealistic--too noble--for the work immediately before them. Although she would have been the rightful inheritor, and although her self-righteousness would surely have served everyone well in the long term, at present, she could do nothing but hinder things. The events of moments past were direct proof of that. At this point in the grand scheme, she could be trusted to do nothing other than ruin everything for everyone. She had needed to be kept out of this part of the operation--kept out of all of this _dirty_ business. But now it was too late. No one individual was more important than the success of the Project itself. Lara had reduced herself to no better a thing than an obstacle; and, despite how much he owed her, despite how much he loved her, she embodied just the sort of obstacle that could entirely undo him. She had become just the sort of obstacle that required immediate eradication.

And eradication with extreme prejudice.

But there-in lay Corbin's biggest problem:

The only safe moment to shoot Lara Croft would have been while she was convinced, as she had been a moment before, that she _wouldn't_ be. No one Corbin knew was as confident nor as determined as Lara, and no one as dangerous. No military soldier in the world was as skilled a marksman as she, and there were no troops Corbin had ever seen who were as proficient in infantry navigation, tactics, athletics, martial arts, survival, or physical fitness. Physically, Lara was incomparable. Corbin had seen Lara go _days_ without sleep and still win tournaments. He'd seen her go hand-to-hand with opponents three times her size--in the ring and out--and conquer the day. She may not have been a war-veteran herself, but she could move like the wind through any terrain and destroy entire armies of trained and practiced veterans in simulated combat. Lara was as tough and as icy-calm as people come. He had seen her risk her own life without hesitation in real-world skiing accidents and car crashes, and be just as calm and gay and reserved after such crises were over as she had been before they had begun. With her proven combat skills and her cool, cool head, Cobin would bet on his niece against any special operations trooper he had ever known; even the hardest vets. She was imperturbable. Simulated bullets or real would make no difference to her. Though he had wished to see her at the fore of his Project eventually, Corbin knew of no one more potentially dangerous should she fashion herself its enemy--as his soldiers had seen to it that she had. There was no repair for this kind of damage. From that moment on, his beloved Lara could become only ever more dangerous. It was too late to save her now.

The only question left was the mess.

And the body count.

It had to end, and it had to end quickly!

"Don't just stand there you idiots!" he screamed down to the clearing. "They're getting away!"

He watched Lieutenant Murphy and the others leap from their frozen stances and grope for the 9mm pistols they each had been concealing beneath the flaps of their left-breast's vest-webbing. In moments they were leaning over the island's bank, shooting, while the river swept the fugitives seemingly helplessly before them.

* * *

When the shots started hitting the water, Rainy was still watching the soldiers taking aim at him from the bank above. His mind was a cold blank. When he suddenly he felt his body yanked below the surface, he hadn't the time to take a breath; and, when he went down, he found himself mindlessly kicking and thrashing and trying to break loose--but only _before_ he saw the hot, black, lines streaking through the foam before his face and all around his head. Only _before_ he heard the eerie _zoom_ of shot after shot as they cut the currents into undulating segments around him. After that, thoughts of air only vaguely crossed his mind.

Lara had dragged him down and forward, as deep beneath the river as they could go. The darkening dusk sun could only barely reach them there, and the soldiers' dead-aimed shots were rendered harmlessly inaccurate. Though bullets zig-zagged every which way, creating curdling fields of hot black streaks, Lara seemed unaffected by them. She swam and swam and swam. She had a huge and powerful frog-stroke that moved them so fast that he felt as though he were being fired as a torpedo rather than dragged by a mad, massively powerful woman.

Their race was greatly assisted by the rapids whirling around them; and it wasn't long before the succession of shots had begun to recede, soon ceasing altogether. But, even in the quiet, Lara kept right on swimming--and kept right on dragging hapless Rainy, to whose mind the new quiet had lent the dangerous latitude to wish for air. Rainy wanted loose from this juggernaut-mermaid, this living nuclear submarine--this inhuman _thing--_who feigned no pretense at needing air at all. Rainy didn't know how long he had been down before he panicked. Too long. Long enough to feel the need for air crushing him from within as if he were a housefly clenched in a child's fist, buzzing wildly to get loose. He found himself kicking at her vigorously, swinging his arms and grabbing at her flesh, but she refused to release him.

It was only then that he noticed that their speed against the river-bottom was not merely fast, but getting faster and faster--even though Lara hadn't sped up. The speed of the current itself was increasing. Ahead, he saw the descending, down-going slope of a river gone full-mad--full of rampaging waves and thunder and violence--but with a calmer path branching off at a tangent. Clearly, Lara's determination to hold Rainy despite himself had been part of her efforts to save his more weakly-swimming butt from being swept away into the unbelievable violence fraught along the major branch. Unfortunately, however, his appreciation of her efforts came too late to save him from his own hysterical bid to wrench himself loose from her grasp.They span apart in the building wash, and both broke through to the river's surface at once--both sucking down a wet, desperate breath.

Suddenly, Rainy knew where he was. He had been to this place frequently; albeit during a period when his life in the valley had been much less violent. The valley's river system was a spiderweb of splintered tributaries that branched and merged throughout the forest, creating jigsaws of landmasses with defiant rocky abutments like the one just before them: Bifurcations of the rapids where, during dusks like this one, explosive gusts of vapor were ignited by the orange sun into a glittering display of rainbow streaks. It was beautiful; but only from the shore: The gust-making landmass' cutting blade before them was chopping and splattering the river like a chainsaw, sending the right half into a new, quieter tranquility, and the left half into a course of even greater violence. Lara had been struggling--successfully until just before that moment--to get them both clear to the right; but Rainy had just shaken himself loose in the wild currents bound for the lethal left.

The splattering rock was coming up fast.

"Oh, no..." murmured Rainy.

"Hang on!" screamed Lara, diving.

Rainy took a deep breath and held it this time.

On cue, Lara took hold of his waist and yanked him down, re-starting her familiar, powerful, frog-stroke. Rainy kicked and swam and did his best to contribute; but, although they pushed and struggled, the currents dragged them mightily the wrong way. Every inch was miracle--any other swimmer in the world, Rainy thought, would have been ripped around that isthmus in an instant--but Lara's ferocious efforts kept them clear for a time, and even let them gain some ground. Lara's lean, awesome muscles were visibly sheer beneath the skin of her legs and arms; and her rhythmic, unfailingly hard, fast, body felt almost like machine against his, leaving Rainy awestruck at her unfaltering, seemingly inhuman, endurance and strength and speed.

Yet, in the end, it was simply too late.

They struck the front edge of the dividing rock as though it were the blade of a knife, and it cut them off from one-another--sending them rolling and scrambling about, groping independently for whatever algaed purchase fate deemed fit to offer them. Lara's legs whipped up and back and carried her right, toward safety; but Rainy's virtually inconsequential struggles did nothing to help him overcome the forces of the current. The river's mighty, remorseless will had its way with him: He was on the left side--the deadly side--watching Lara's body being steadily concealed from his sight by the isthmus-blade's smoothly interposing edge. Rainy's eyes went wide--desperately--and he reached out to Lara across the edge of the stone. Lara reached back, and the two grabbed each other at the elbow and shoulders. They gazed at each other through the bubbling, racing waters, each face like a mirror of the other in its desperate, silent plea,

_hold on!_

Lara's hands began to slip, and Rainy felt her strong fingers release his wrist to close instead around the shoulder strap of the knapsack strapped to his back. She had the bag's easily-gripped straps solidly and was pulling backward, attempting to use the bag as a harness to retrieve him before he slipped away completely. Lara tugged him back, pulling mightily; gently assisted by the mild current on her side of the isthmus. By Lara's sheer strength, Rainy's body gradually began to inch its way across. At the brink of triumph, Rainy reached up and grabbed the bag's fabric solidly, attempting to assist himself as well; but this token effort only added new stress to the already over-taxed knapsack's fabric, and its seams ripped out beneath the strain. He went whirling loose into the wild and violent, wrong-side currents--cut off from Lara--_gone_--shooting straight for the rocks.

Lara was suddenly gone, and seemingly all hope; but there would seem to still be a miracle in the making for him. He should have been dashed immediately against the rocks, but he somehow slithered amongst them unharmed. He went down the steep, left-side decline, and was instantly tossed to the surface, riding the eddies that whipped around the rocks obstructing the rapid passage. His body flopped like a rag-doll in the currents. He went up and down with the water's flippant caprice, too paralyzed with terror to attempt any effort to resist the tide. It was pure luck that he wasn't flattened, ripped, or splattered across the rocks--there was no skill or thought involved: Pure facile exhaustion caused his body to yield to the river's influences, causing him to bounce, like rubber, _across_ rather than _against_ the cracked rock surfaces he struck. Like driftwood, he went up and down, over, below, and across. He floated, he pivoted, he bobbed, and he lightly stroked, until, finally, the waters began to calm.

Rainy, miraculously, was still alive.

He was overjoyed to realize that the waters were finally flattening and the currents were relaxing--though the ordeal, by then, had left him too exhausted to even move, let alone swim himself to shore. He let himself float at the surface of the now, blessedly, smoothly flowing river; and he watched the path ahead widening. The river was preparing to empty out into the giant crater-lake at the center of the valley. He spent a minute transfixed by the look of the glittering lake, so vast and primal. The surface was crimson and black, now that the sun had nearly gone to sleep behind the ridge of the mountains behind it. Until he was rested enough to move, he was content to float upon his back, pondering his luck in having somehow survived the rapids. He counted the times he had cheated death in the divided river bed by merely inches or seconds. He counted his blessings, every one; and he wondered which of his tribal gods (which he didn't believe in) he would eventually have to thank.

When he finally had the strength to stroke, he dog-paddled to shore and dug his fingers into the soil. In gratitude, he blessed the land's every aspect: it's ferns, its bug-ridden mud, its tree's strong roots. He reached out for everything in an great outpouring of gratitude. As he dragged his languid body to ground, however, he couldn't help but also consider his losses: His losses that, he had no choice but to admit, outweighed every boon.

"You dumb bitch," he whispered, sobbing; his face in the mud.

She had his bag.

What he would never have imagined was that Lara was sobbing too--also prostrate in the mud at a river bank.

And sobbing worse.


	7. Chapter Six: Transitions

"_I don't want to be the one_

_The battles always choose_

'_Cause inside I realize_

_That I'm the one confused_

"_I don't what's worth fighting for_

_Or why I have to scream_

_But now I have some clarity_

_To show you what I mean_

_I don't know how I got this way_

_I'll never be alright_

_So I'm breaking the habit_

_I'm breaking the habit_

_Tonight_

"_I'll paint it on the walls_

'_Cause I'm the one at fault_

_I'll never fight again_

_And this is how it ends_..."

**--Linkin Park.**

**CHAPTER SIX:** **"**Transitions.**"**

Despite what had happened upon the clifftop and under the waterfall, Lara had still had her pride.

Pride enough to strive. Pride enough to try, one last time, to stave off what had become the end of her innocence. She had lost her emotional foundations when Corbin had taken his first shots, and whatever delusions about herself that had remained were butchered when she had hit the cold water and had suddenly realized how things were going to end. But pride had told her how she might still save the day. How she might still save Rainy--and, perhaps, herself in the process. Until now, pride had lingered. Physically, pride had saved her life. But pride had been the sin, along with so many others, that had veiled her from the true self-appraisal which might have saved her from having to see this day in the first place. From having to face the facts of the things that she _couldn't_ face--that she _wouldn't _face--before pride was finally dashed dead against the rocks, alongside all hope and poor, pathetic Rainy. Self-reflection had poisoned her, and she _was_ dead--despite the fact that she was still mercilessly conscious and drifting, face down, in the cold, cold river.

She was done with the world.

She was done with herself.

She was dying.

She was dead.

She didn't even _want_ to breathe.

Lara Croft was a remarkable being; there was no room for doubt. It was impossible to question the powers implicit in her triumphs and accolades. But she had never felt worthy of herself. Hers was a feeble, tiny soul; and there were places inside of it where she dared not dwell too long. What might she destroy were she vain-gloriously to presume to enforce her will upon the real world? It was clearly the result of this healthy terror that it had never even _occurred_ to her to pursue any but the most trivial of interests; and for even those, she had had no choice but to hide behind a presumption of grace. She had to trust that God--or that goodness, at least--was the real master of her will. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. It was now clear that her soul's master had, all along, been its own darkest places: her pride, her denial, her arrogance. Unsaved by grace, she now knew that she was a tool not of God, but of Jacob Corbin, her foe.

Her love.

There was no use denying it anymore. The cold fact was that her pitiful soul had never developed into anything that could stand apart from Corbin's. Her mother had died giving birth to her, her father had died from a skiing accident some months before that, and her grandfather had been too senile to raise her himself. She hadn't had even a nanny who could tolerate her for more than a few months. Corbin was her only constant. He had been her surrogate _everything_. This was the clarity that the death of pride had delivered to her doorstep: Whatever Corbin was, she was. At last, she saw herself truly--unadorned, unembellished, and unforgiven.

The pieces had come together. It had all been there, right before her face, if only she had had the will to open her eyes and see. These events were not isolated to merely this valley, nor hardly to Jacob Corbin. The corporation that bore _her _name was responsible for everything. As Croft's highest heir, _she_ was responsible. She now realized that she had _seen_ the corruption, the exploitation, and the malicious negligence that Corbin had brought into Croft Industries, but she had never once thought to even _question _him. Her singular admiration of him and her own pride had corrupted her to the point that she hadn't even _perceived_ that there was evil happening in her name. The cold fact was that she truly _was _the corrupt and inhuman _thing _that the peasant woman had wanted to smash out of existence in her rightful, perfectly-vindicated rage. It was the only way to explain her life. On the surface, everything may have seemed polished and glittering, but it had always been a puddle of maggots just underneath.

These were the nails in the coffin of an innocence which she could never have back. Seeing how Corbin's influence was the captain of her will had bankrupted her last trace of faith in her own moral compass. She was such a mighty powerhouse of skills and knowledge and political and economic power that it terrified her to think what evils lay before her--evils she could never even know she had committed until after it was too late. She agonized over evils she might have _already _unwittingly produced. The only surprise, it would seem, was how long it had taken for her innate darkness to mature to the point that she could take her rightful place in the evil Croft Empire that Corbin had also so meticulously fashioned. Her murdered love for Corbin had both freed her from pride and destroyed her utterly: He was all she was inside. Reaching out to save Rainy had been nothing more than a pathetic apology for the new thing into which she had spent twenty-one years gestating: A new and more horrifying form of Croft Scourge. Her days of Light were behind her and dead, the Dark lay before her and beckoned, and she was lost in the perilous blank space between.

Her soul surrendered to the limbo, waiting for her cursed body to do the only decent thing and _drown_.

But she didn't drown. Instead, the land itself--as though a lonely suitor--sweetly called her back to it, and the waters, obediently, gently lifted her from their colder currents, and, ostentatiously, placed her at his threshold. Of course, this could not possibly have been literally true: The land can't be lonely, and the waters obey no one. But Lara _did_ perceive it this way, even if she were too lost in despair to realize it at the time. Without realizing she had done so, her arms reached out for the land just as a lover might, and she dug her numb, water-logged fingers deeply into its muddy soil, bringing herself across from cold and death into new life and new chances. Once upon his shores, Lara sobbed vainly, without a single tear to shed as dowry after having wasted so many upon the indifferent currents behind her.

Half-on and half-off the muddy shore, her hand opened and closed mindlessly around the shoulder strap that the boy had clung to as if to life itself. She had kept the knapsack because it had seemed a way to honor the boy, but now its presence only brought her pain. Scornfully, she prepared to toss the bag into the gurgling waters behind her, without care or thought of what might lay within. She stiffened her shoulders and gathered the strength of purpose to--

Footsteps.

Almost silent.

Very close.

She lifted her head from the mud, and she saw--

_Kini_.

It was her first sense, and it was an inaccurate one; but the face she saw, with its lines and marks and scars and cool, sinister eyes were a remarkable resemblance. This 'Kini', however, was somewhat younger, much skinnier, and wasn't wearing a black military uniform. His clothes were mostly strips of animal skin, augmented with tatters of some roughly hewn fabric that barely covered even the parts of him that most needed covering.

And he carried a spear--pointed at _her_.

Lara thought of the little boy from before. The one who should have killed her--who _would _have killed her, had the men in black not shot him dead first. That boy had hesitated, but this older version of the same apparition would seem to harbor no such inhibitions. She pushed herself up from the mud to expose her chest and meet her end. She had no intent to fight.

As she stood, four more natives approached. Two had spears, one had a bow and a fistful of stone-headed arrows, and a forth carried an MP5 submachinegun. Their faces beamed with merciless anticipation. But, before they could strike--and despite Lara's tacit approval that they do so--something impacted the mud at her feet with a dull _plop_, and all of the native men fell instantly prostrate before her. They _threw_ themselves to the ground, terrifiedin their genuflections.

She looked down.

Whatever it was, the natives had clearly mistaken it for an idol. It was an eight or nine inch metal cylinder, with about two or three inches of girth. Its surface was a pastiche of soldered wires and welded plates. It called to mind something which might be removed from the guts of a giant computer. Obviously, it was technology--very high technology--but it was capped with a finely-cut crystal of some type, which made it seem a magical, potent, and mysterious thing. It unquestionably commanded comparison to the royal scepters of imperial kings, or the sacrificial idols of ancient pagan cults.

Compulsively, Lara knelt and examined the Idol. She lifted it and turned it in her hands while the warriors mumbled quiet chants at the earth beneath their faces. She lost sight of them. Seeing them fall prostrate seemed to wash them from her attention. Everything had become instantly surreal. She rotated the cylinder slowly, gazing at the crystal headpiece.

Though it might not have been visible in bright daylight, against the dusk, the crystal was _glowing_.

Steadily pulsing.

_Glowing_.

AAA

Rico pushed the headphone bud more deeply into his ear, bobbing his head with the heavy Rave rhythm that was bouncing out of it. Over his other ear was the speaker pad of the wireless headset he was wearing over his black, row-brimmed, Ranger-rolled softcap; but he wasn't listening to the others' incessant chatter anymore. 'Checkpoint this', 'perimeter that', 'establish interception search whatever.' _Kill _the big-tit bitch and _wound_ the little Navajo: These were all the instructions he needed. And a pair of sharp eyes, a sharp mind, and at least one sharp ear were all that he would need to carry them out. So he turned the chatter way, way down, and he cranked the music way, way up, and he searched.

Walking.

Searching.

Nodding time.

This was a job he could do sleeping (an activity he'd rather be doing anyway). Whatever her résumé, the day some poor little rich slut would pose a danger to him (well, except in court), there would be a luau in Antarctica. Especially without a gun. And the boy? The little Chief Dickinhand? It was a total waste of time going after either of them, Rico thought. Let them drown. Let them starve. Let nature take its course. This stupid game of hide-and-seek was a waste of his valuable time. These were hours better spent chasing pussy that he would never get back.

Except for the fact of the ILC. Rico had to admit that the ILC made the search at least somewhat worthwhile. Rico didn't know what the ILC was, precisely, but he knew it was a part of that psycho gizmo-thing they had back at the basecamp. He had never been the sort of soldier who asked a lot of questions--especially technical ones--but, if he understood nothing else from all those lengthy, boring briefings, everything in the damned world depended on finding this ILC and bringing it back to its home inside that moon-shot looking thing back at the camp. Well, at least, according to that pencil-neck phony, Corbin.

Rico wished that D.C. wacko would give his fanatic-bone a rest. It didn't make sense to go tromping through

the woods like this. Why couldn't they wait it out a bit? See where the current actually _takes _the ILC before they go scouring the bush into the dead of night. They could be chasing the damned thing forever if Rainy actually drowned like a good little Indian and it's being dragged by the currents. And, even if it's settled in the riverbed somewhere, skin diving after it would be an idiotic idea when help is so soon to arrive--and will have scuba gear with it. It's going to wind up at the bottom of that huge-ass lake where they'll be able to pick it up at their leisure, if only Corbin would give it the time. But no. Instead, he's making them waste a whole 'nother night stumbling around in the woods instead of the getting the sleep they so obviously desperately need.

While he scanned the way ahead and left, noting the faint remains of dusk glittering on the river beside him, Murphy's voice crackled in his commo ear. It was time for another of his utterly redundant security check-ins. Murphy couldn't get seem to get enough of them. He had never been this bad during train-ups. The real-deal was apparently stressing him out pretty bad. No different than the rest of the troops, Rico supposed; except that Murphy was also having to deal with Corbin at the basecamp, breathing down his neck. Murphy was just doing his duty by sharing the wealth and stressing out the rest of the squad, too.

"_Rico, checkpoint?_" said Murphy's testy, overly-severe voice.

"Twenty-one, and still clear," replied Rico. But, thinking he should, at least, add _some_ piece of information that the lieutenant didn't already know, he added, "Shit-faced tired, but clear." Even though Murphy surely knew that his team was exhausted after two straight days of combat, it still felt good to remind him.

"_Good copy_," replied Murphy, clearly oblivious to the barb--as was typical. But then Murphy added, distressingly, "_because we have a situation. We've got fresh readings on the ILC. You're not going to like it_."

"What, man?" said Rico, too stressed-out for courtesy. "What now?"

"_It's back in sector six._"

"What?" snapped Rico. "Fuck."

"_The water probably distorted the read_--" Murphy tried, stupidly, to explain. Rico didn't care.

"Yeah, I know what water can do," Rico said. "I mean, who was supposed to be in sector four?"

"_Cavanaugh_," Murphy said.

"How'd it get past him?"

"_You're both on the same perimeter, Rico_," Murphy said.

"Don't give me that shit, Murph!" Rico said. "I just got here."

Rico looked nervously around himself.

"Well, I ain't going back in there," Rico declared.

"_We're almost definitely going to have to_," Murphy said.

"Fuck that!" Rico snapped. "Once is a-fucking-nuff!"

He realized he was shouting. He heard his voice echo in the woods.

"Look," Rico said, more quietly, "you said First and Third are coming in."

"_So?_"

"So, send those fuck-heads in there!"

Rico's hot contest of Murphy's on-going stupidity almost made him miss hearing what splashed down in the water just behind him.

"Wait one!" Rico whispered, spinning and scanning the water surface for the source of the noise.

He saw instead what his busy conversation had almost made him miss: Matted, dirty grass at the shore; drag-marks like foot and hand-prints in the mud; clumps of partially dried mud that would seem to have fallen from the treads of boots--all leading to the trunk of the--right next to the--

_Eyes up!_

Rico scrambled to get a hold of the pistol grip of the MP5 that hung by a shoulder-strap at his side, but he moved so recklessly that he ended up knocking the weapon behind himself instead. Meanwhile, the sole of the boy's boot slid almost off of the tree branch he was standing on, and another clump of half-dried mud plopped into the water just off bank, a few feet away. The boy was directly above his head, scrambling for balance, shaking; trying to climb a tree whose branches were too small, even for him. Rico had glanced behind himself to get a hold of his pistol grip when he heard the branch snap. He heard the boy cry out, and he felt the winds quicken around him.

Reflexively releasing his weapon, Rico looked up and tried to deflect the boy's clumsy, falling body. It fell on him anyway, well before he had a chance to knock it away. Off balance and directly landed on, Rico stumbled back and reached over the boy's shoulders, trying to pry him loose--but the boy's arms were clutching, grabbing for anything. Rico could hear his desperate, plaintive gasps. The boy grabbed and pulled and snatched and dug. The wind had been knocked out of the little runt, and he was fighting just to breathe.

"Get off me, you little shit!" Rico snarled, digging his hands beneath the boy's chest and belly and shoving him straight out and away.

The boy landed at the river bank, several feet distant, too breathless to even cry out.

This would be it, Rico thought. Hallelujah. He reached back for his MP5.

But then the little punk found a voice. A rather peculiar one.

Rico had expected to hear a pathetic plea or a whimper while the little nerd-boy wetted his jeans. Instead, though the boy still appeared properly terror-struck, his voice sounded curiously determined--_threatening_, even--and strangely imperative. Rico suddenly realized what his arm _hadn't _brushed on its way around his side to the MP5: His sidearm was missing from its chest-holster. His eyes locked fast and hard upon the boy.

Rainy was half-in and half-out of the water and had Rico's 9mm in his hands.

"No!" said the boy, fearfully, pointing the pistol. "No! No! _No_!"

Rico smiled. He never carried with his safety off.

He reached slowly back for his MP5, taking his time to be sure he had a hold of it.

"No! No!" said the boy, "please! I don't want to! I'll…I'll…"

Rico heard the trigger pulled ineffectually--the safety having disengaged the hammer--and he listened with delight to the sound of the child's incredulous, mortified gasp. Rico had the MP5 in hand by then, and he span it quickly forward.

"Good game, you little prick!" Rico said, swinging the MP5 before him like a round punch, already firing.

When the first round caught him in the abdomen, it took him a moment to realize that it was he himself who was hit, and not the boy. Rico looked down and saw the blood matted against his black uniform blouse. He smelled the smoke--the unbelievable, incomprehensible smell of his own flesh sizzling; pushing up smoke to his nose. Suddenly the Rave disc he was listening to sounded very, very loud.

"No…" Rico murmured.

"I'm sorry," cried the boy. "I didn't mean to. I only--A warning, that was all. I--"

"You little son of a bitch!" Rico hissed, firing the MP5.

Rounds caught him in his belly again, and then in his chest, and his shoulder and his hip and his chest and his neck and his chest again! He started falling backwards, his MP5 still crackling, waving wildly in the air--finding its own targets to shoot, somewhere in the sky, and in the trees, and in dusk-glowing clouds. He fell to the screams of his own weapons: the one he was firing, and the one being fired upon him. He heard them screaming, singing in time with the music in his ears, like a human voice. They didn't blend, though; those screams. The Rave's Electronica voices were inhuman and soulless, cool and rational. The screaming voices of the guns were full of emotion and angst and fever. And then he realized that it wasn't the guns screaming at him at all, but rather it was the boy. What he was hearing were Rainy's terrified, regretful cries. His tearful, regretful cries.

Rico was on his back, unable to move.

"First kill," Rico said, not realizing he'd said it aloud. "Good job, kid. Bravo. Brav…"

While listening to the sounds of the boy dropping the smoking pistol and tearing off into the woods, Rico smiled and found his face becoming numb and unable to stop smiling. They would find him that way, he thought, listening to their crackling voices through his headset, hearing them trying to triangulate his position. They had ordered him to answer them many times, but he simply couldn't speak. Dimly, he wondered if they would find him in time to stop his bleeding. Absently, serenely, he wondered if he might yet survive. And then he heard the leader order them to switch to alternate communication channel 'B', and the pickup went dead.

Soon later, so did he.

AAA

"Rico! Rico!" Murphy shouted into the pickup.

Corbin, Murphy, and Kini were on the island in the valley, standing in the middle of the half-circle formed by the five military-style storage tents. The camp was highly orderly and mostly unremarkable, apart from its three seemingly redundant diesel generators, the computers humming inside one of the tents, and the strange, beer-keg sized, high-tech mystery-devise which was wired to the computer-tent by a long cable.

Corbin had to admit he was impressed with the field-rigged Interlocutor. He had been told it resembled an Apollo Lunar Module, but it still surprised him to see it. He wondered if giving the thing such a look were some engineer's attempt at geek irony. There were a myriad of ways they might have designed its legs, and its welded metal panels might just as easily have been arranged as a cube rather than a hexahedron. Perhaps the locks of intertwined soldered wires which jutted from the gaps between its panels were an indication of its design's purpose: Easy access to all of its guts' special compartments. The configuration had certainly served the traitors well: It made stealing the ILC distressingly easy.

Murphy was nearby, kneeling beside the radio set that had been his command post for most of the day. Corbin moved close and stood near him, waiting for the squad leader to report what had just happened. In his impatience, Corbin let his eyes ride the long, whip-like radio antenna up into the air where it waved pleasantly in the evening breeze. It looked like a snake standing on the tip of its tail.

"Rico's MIA," said Murphy, sighing miserably.

"How?" asked Corbin, snatched back from his thoughts.

"Your girl, maybe."

"Swell," Corbin hissed. "Then she's got a gun."

"And a radio and lots of other toys," Murphy admitted.

"It's getting out of hand," Corbin murmured.

"I know," said Murphy. "I'm sorry."

"I warned you to leave Lara to _me_," Corbin said.

"And I did!" protested Murphy.

"But you tried to interrogate Rainy," Corbin said, shaking his head miserably. "You should have known better."

"With all due respect, sir," Murphy groaned, "you _knew _what I was going to do. How the fuck was I supposed to know she was Rambo?"

Corbin sighed.

Kini was standing quietly nearby. He hadn't moved since returning from the clifftop where Lara and Rainy had escaped. He stood, glaring at Murphy and Corbin, his arms crossed. He remained taciturn and sullen. Corbin gave him a glance while Murphy instructed the squad to switch to the alternate communication frequency and ordered a fresh security roll call.

"You," said Kini, "should not have stopped me."

"Maybe," Corbin conceded, considering. "But…"

Thoughts intended to be spoken trailed into silence and remained mere thoughts.

"Lara Croft," Corbin finally hissed aloud, shaking his head miserably, "goddamnit."

Corbin and Kini were obviously thinking the same thoughts. Yes, it might indeed have been easier if he had simply let Kini strangle her dead on the plane rather than making him leave her there unconscious. It was true that bringing Lara anywhere _near_ this place had been an unacceptable risk by anyone's account; but how could he not at least try? She was his niece, for God's sake. But their focus had to remain on the Project, and he was the leader no matter what. He couldn't afford to jeopardize his credibility on the account of _any _man's ego, however fragile. It was too big an operation to deceive himself into thinking he could control it all and not make any mistakes. There was too much ground to cover. Too many 'ifs'. And far too few men. The real tragedy was that either he or Lara were there at all: Corbin should never have been forced to visit the field site in the first place. He didn't belong out there. The depths of incompetence that had led to this crisis were beyond tolerance. It was a problem he would have to deal with, and _soon_. In the meantime, he wouldn't yield Murphy an inch.

"ETA?" Corbin snapped at Murphy, interrupting the radio roll-call which he had just initiated.

"...check in, Henrick...roger...loud and clear," Murphy said, adding--annoyed--"wait-one, squad." He changed the radio's setting, saying more loudly: "Flight Team, ETA?"

Unexpectedly, Murphy stood up. He dropped the headset and stated: "Now."

Suddenly, wind whisked over the clearing from all directions, and there was a low thumping noise which instantly exploded into a roar. Seemingly from nowhere, a huge, black CH-47 _Chinook_ helicopter emerged overhead. The pilot, Chief Warrant OfficerHercule Moriguchi, had a skill for nape-of-the-earth flight that never failed to amaze. Moriguchi could move even the largest bird with such agility that its noise and silhouette remained entirely masked by terrain until it was well within striking range. Of course, Moriguchi couldn't possibly have been laying in wait for Murphy's call, but the way he had exploded so spectacularly onto the scene just then made it seem just so.

The massive bird came into a hover and prepared to settle into the LZ. Its two massive propellers miraculously didn't uproot the tents or Murphy's radio antenna, but everything else that weighed less than a few pounds and wasn't strapped down went briskly airborne. Grass, twigs, topsoil, and debris went whipping wildly away into the air, swirling around where the giant helicopter was nestling into its landing place. As the bird touched down, its two sliding side doors and its huge hydraulic rear door all simultaneously opened, revealing the nearly two-dozen fresh troops inside--each one wearing the same sort of black uniform as those already on the ground. Even the flight crew's traditionally gray flight suits had been cut from special reams of black-colored Nomex.

Suddenly, the clearing came alive with shouted voices and urgent movement. From the back of the helicopter, four black motorcycles emerged, each pushed by two new men. Eleven other new soldiers also followed, filing from the side doors while the first eight hurriedly pushed their four bikes past Corbin, Kini, and Murphy. These troops said nothing to Corbin or the others, despite Corbin's efforts to meet their eyes. Without even acknowledging him, they hurried back and forth to unload the remaining gear. Soon, the middle of the clearing had become host to a scattered assemblage of nylon satchels, small wooden crates, metal boxes, motorcycles, and bustling, black-clad men.

With some soldiers ferrying equipment, some soldiers examining each others' backpacks and suspenders, and some others simply sitting and eating field rations, it seemed as though the troops were capriciously doing whatever they chose; but all Corbin saw was perfect discipline and training. Everyone knew what everyone else was expected to do. Even against the noise of the helicopter, Corbin could hear the soldiers calling out their ranks and names or the numbers of their squads, followed by phrases such as "CAT-Four!" or "head count!" or "Up!" or "Moving!" or any number of other scripted inquiries and replies. Despite the incompetence of their higher leadership, Corbin was immensely proud of the team he had assembled.

Corbin's pride was deflated, however, when he caught first sight of the final soldier to disembark the _Chinook_. The man was older than Corbin by at least a decade, and his chiseled, spiny, once-black crew-cut was deeply streaked with coarse, steely gray. He was a severe and command-faced man. Like all of the others, he had no brass on his collar; but, unlike the others, he had no need for insignia to distinguish him. His air was so clearly that of a commanding officer that any soldier below the rank of general would find it instinctive to address him as 'sir.' Without words, his eyes, his glance, his very _presence _commanded the troops, and it was obvious how Corbin's precious recruits had been subverted into unquestioning obedience to him. This man, though ostensibly Corbin's subordinate, was actually his opponent--and this was fact of which both men were uncomfortably aware. His name Colonel Adolf Spaulding. With him was a pudgy, balding, slightly older officer who was clearly a member of the colonel's rear-echelon staff.

"About time you got here, Colonel," snapped Corbin, foregoing all pretense.

"Good evening to you, too, Mr. Corbin," replied the colonel, sarcastically.

"You must be Kini," said the colonel's staffer, brightly; obviously as a ploy to defuse the tension between Corbin and his boss.

Kini, however, regarded the staffer as indifferently as Corbin. It would seem that he, too, felt instantly annoyed by the man's cheerfulness.

"I've heard quite a lot about you," the staffer continued, regardless. "I'm Major Jeremy Leipig, and this is Colonel Spaulding, your commander. You've finally gotten a chance to meet each other in person. It's been a long time coming, hasn't it?"

"Yes, it has," replied Kini, coolly.

Kini and Spaulding eyed each other, mutually suspiciously. It was clear that something like an accord was being silently negotiated. What wasn't verbally said didn't need to be said--not by men like these. Loyalties were questioned, contested, and confirmed; courses of action were proposed, negotiated, and committed to. The terms of their coalition were decided and ratified all in the space of a silent moment of passionless, cold stares. Perhaps Leipig understood, but he didn't give up.

"I'm sorry we didn't use you earlier," Leipig said. "We might have avoided this. Your English has improved?"

"I am proficient," Kini replied.

"Excellent," Spaulding said. "Where I am, you be."

"As you wish."

Suddenly, the platoon leader walked into the group to present his readiness report.

"Johnny," said Spaulding.

Captain John Bailey was a muscular and imposing officer who was approximately Corbin's age. He and Spaulding had come into Corbin's Operations Force as a package of sorts: Spaulding the brain, Bailey the brawn. They had apparently worked together in the Special Forces for years. The two were of one mind when it came to most issues, and Bailey ran things in the Force strictly according to Spaulding's dictates. The pair were an 'old-boy's club' of two, and the platoon's _modus operandi_ reflected the hegemony. Bailey was a 'yes-man', and Corbin couldn't stand him. When he approached, Corbin bristled. He bristled worse, however, when he caught the gist of what Bailey had come to say.

"Troops up," said Captain Bailey, "equipment up, vehicles up, ammo..."

When he paused as though uncertain that a report about the subject was really necessary, Corbin's interest was piqued. Corbin then noticed how Bailey's MP5--like all of the new-comer's MP5s--lacked a traditional ammunition magazine. The magazine slot on their weapons was capped with a rubber dust-cover of a type with which Corbin was intensely familiar. Every grudge against these men that Corbin had harbored in earnest seemed instantly validated. He glared at Spaulding, his eyes alive with rage.

"You have something to tell me, Colonel?" Corbin growled.

"Only what you should have told me from the beginning, sir," Spaulding growled back.

"So, that really _is _what I think it is?" Corbin snarled.

"I don't send my men to fight without a distinct tactical advantage," stated Spaulding, coldly.

"Top secret, National Security Agency--" Corbin growled.

"You will not send my men--" Spaulding also said.

"--restricted information, Colonel! You do not have the authority to--"

"--to die for the NSA's failure to keep secrets!"

"--requisition from R&D without my approval--"

"Security has already been compromised! If you want it _back_ under control…"

"I am in charge of this operation, Colonel! This is my project, not yours!"

"Do you _want_ this thing back under control, Mr. Corbin? Do you?"

"_Carte Blanche_, Colonel!"

"Do you?"

"**_Carte Blanche!_**"

Colonel Spaulding regarded Corbin with restrained outrage, as did all of the assembled troops, who had overheard--if nothing else--Corbin's final shout. No matter the right or wrong of what been done or what had lead to those decisions, the final authority was with Jacob Corbin of the National Security Agency. The argument was over. As was inevitable, Corbin had won.

"So," said Spaulding more civilly, "what do you want me to do? Send them out there with nine-millimeters and pocket knives? We're here, sir. Are you going to let us do our job?"

Corbin sighed disgustedly and shook his head.

"Not one--_not one--_piece of experimental material had better end up anywhere but back in the lab," Corbin demanded. "Do you understand me, Colonel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Total accountability."

"Please!" Spaulding shouted. "Give me credit for my record. I wasn't assigned to you because _I_ make mistakes."

"We'll see," replied Corbin, knowing that Spaulding knew nothing about Rambo--that is, nothing about _Lara_.

Not _yet_.

"Do you have something to tell _me_, Mr. Corbin?" asked the colonel, apparently hearing what Corbin hadn't said.

"A...complication," said Corbin.

"What's happened?" asked Leipig, who had remained nervously silent throughout their fight.

"Lara Croft," Corbin said.

"The wonder brat?" said Spaulding. "What about her?"

"She's here, Colonel," said Corbin.

"What's _she_ doing here?" asked Leipig.

"It doesn't matter," said Corbin. "She's on your plate."

"I trust you'll be arranging transport yourself, then," the colonel said. "I can't deliver her through _my_ contacts. It'll expose the whole operation."

"I'm not asking you to return her home, Colonel," Corbin said, not quite able to meet his eyes.

"Then what _are_ you asking, Mr. Corbin?" asked Leipig.

"_Deal _with her," Corbin insisted, hedging upon the euphemism.

"He wants us to _kill_ her," inferred Spaulding.

"Kill a Croft," murmured Leipig. "Jesus! What does she know?"

"Nothing yet," said Corbin.

"Then…" stammered Leipig, "I don't understand."

"She's just a girl," concurred Spaulding.

"Once you meet her, you'll never say that again," interjected the otherwise shame-facedly silent Murphy.

"My God, you brought her here yourself, didn't you?" asked Spaulding, clearly appalled at the thought.

"It was an accident," Corbin replied.

"You brought Lara _here_, Mr. Corbin?" asked Leipig, more shocked than appalled. "An outsider, a member of Croft's own family?"

"And you were worried about _me_ violating security," said Spaulding, vindicated.

"There was no choice," snapped Corbin. "If you had sent enough people to carry out this mission in the first place, instead of this one incompetent squad, then I never would have had to come here, and--"

"More men to the slaughter?" snapped back Spaulding. "And I suppose you expect me to believe you just _forgot_ to warn me about Hedgebrook? Not to mention the R&D leak--"

"Alright!" shouted Corbin. "But now it's your problem, gentlemen, not mine."

Spaulding chuckled coldly.

"You're a rapid dog, Corbin," Spaulding said. "Now you're even biting the hand that feeds you. If David Croft were--"

"You don't take orders from David Croft!" snapped Corbin.

"Nor from you," the colonel said. "You are a civilian. My chain of command--"

Corbin interrupted angrily: "You have standing orders based on civilian policy, _Colonel_. As my duly appointed Operations Force Commander, it is your _imperative_ to neutralize whatever the NSA deems a threat! What I deem a threat! That's my _carte blanche_ prerogative. Now, I don't care which general in Washington you happen to feel beholden to, I guarantee you, _he _takes orders from the Joint Chiefs, and _they _take orders from the NSA. However you want to justify yourself, ultimately, _your_ orders come from _me_, and I have just given them to you."

"Okay," snarled Spaulding. "Whatever. I'll kill her. Fuck it."

Corbin sighed.

"What about the link?" asked Leipig, apparently attempting to redirect them toward the business for which he himself had obviously been recruited.

"I've managed to fabricate a backup module from raw materials," Corbin said. "The data _is _flowing again, for all the good it's doing."

"What about the natives?" asked the colonel, clearly more interested in things military than technical.

"They've been quiet, for the most part," Corbin said. "But the ILC has found its way back into their sector-six stronghold."

"It walked?" quipped the colonel sarcastically.

"Someone carried it there," Corbin said. "Maybe the boy, maybe the girl, maybe both. We don't know yet."

"Sector-six is a mess," said the colonel, clearly accusing Corbin.

"That's _your_ mess, Colonel," Corbin snapped back.

"That's beyond the one-mile benchmark," noted Leipig, clearly more interested in things technical than military.

"That's right," Corbin said, hoping his pride in his feat wasn't audible in his voice. "The back up's good for two extra miles. But don't let it get past three."

"Then, all in all, we're back in business, right?" asked the colonel.

Corbin was annoyed that the colonel still didn't understand even the basics of the project he fights for. By his remark, it seemed clear that Spaulding was wondering why he needed to bring fresh troops out at all. Corbin would have been justified in another tirade, but his Operations Force Commander didn't need to understand his orders, just as long as he obeyed them.

"No," explained Corbin, his patience strained. "The compiling operation will _remain_ frozen until we get rid of that fucking kid's encryption virus. We're not going to make anymore progress until after we purge the system. We need the kid, and we need the ILC. The backup is nothing more than that: A _temporary_ backup."

"Can't you _make_ it permenant?" asked the colonel, snidely. "I thought _you_ were a hacker, too."

"It's not that easy," said Corbin, curtly, unwilling to waste breath on such a simpleton. "Look, it doesn't matter. Your orders are simple: Get the boy, neutralize the girl, and secure the ILC before the redundancy buffer clears. You've got about twenty-four hours left."

"A whole day away," said the colonel dismissively. "No sweat."

"No bullshit, Colonel," warned Corbin. "Twenty-four hours or it's all for nothing."

"It won't get fucked up because of _me_," the colonel assured him.

"Good," Corbin said--although the challenge the colonel implied was in no ways lost. "Do you have any questions for me right now?"

"No," replied Spaulding, almost civilly. "I can handle this."

"Good," said Corbin with a tone of finality. He turned to walk away, dabbing his face with a cloth from his suit pocket. Blood had started weeping from his bruised eye socket. He had opened a scab with his shouting. He glanced toward the helicopter and then back at Spaulding.

"Call me when the boy's in custody," Corbin said. "You can get me through the net."

"Through the net?" snapped the colonel angrily. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not field personnel," Corbin growled. "I'm going home."

"I'm not trained on this technical shit!" the colonel complained.

"Use your bitch-boy there," snapped Corbin, starting for the helicopter. "That's what he's here for, isn't it?"

"I beg your pardon, sir!" protested Leipig.

"That's my Chinook," shouted Spaulding after Corbin, following him and projecting his voice above the rotor noise.

"You'll get it back," Corbin shouted over his shoulder, not looking back.

AAA

Spaulding watched Corbin board the helicopter and order the surprised pilot to disobey his last instruction and take off. Spaulding could imagine his annoying shouts of '_carte blanche_' and the pathetic trickle of blood running fresh from his bruised eye. He shook his head with contempt.

It was infuriating that Corbin would order him personally to the field site and yet take offense when his troops arrived properly prepared for their task. In the Special Forces, they congratulated such initiative-taking; but Corbin was apparently as impervious to that form of common sense as he was to every other. Spaulding never quite understood why the National Security Agency had placed a man like Corbin at the head of such an overwhelmingly important project as this. He had no grasp of its human dimensions. He had no sense of its scope. His orders that day were a perfect example: Kill his own _niece_? But Spaulding would do even this ugly task. Orders were orders. Still, it underlined the fatal flaw in the man, and it confirmed other suspicions that Spaulding had hoped were merely his own paranoia.

Originally, being tapped for a special project like this had seemed a dream come true. He had been recognized for his original ideas, and had been removed from the rank-and-file Army in order to explore and develop them. He had created a hell of a team. But his ostensible commander, his NSA liaison--an over-glorified messenger-boy, from Spaulding's perspective--was a pollution to the mixture. He had turned sweet wine into vinegar. The two simply could not _both _be in charge. There was a limit to the amount of sheer bullshit that a man with the responsibility for other men's lives can take. It was clear that either Corbin or he himself had crossed the line that day, and that something was going to have to change as a result--and change _radically_. But that was a crisis for later. When the time was right. For now, there was a mission before him on the ground, and Spaulding would be _damned_ if he were going to allow a failure in the field to spoil his chances in the larger arena. Politics was a messy game; but in this case, it was a game which could be won with deeds--if Spaulding could make his deeds speak louder than Corbin's bullshit words.

"Alright. Whatever," Colonel Spaulding said. "Let's get done."

AAA

The fire was visible from far, far away; but she had felt the heat long before arriving.

And had she also heard it. She heard the ones who blended their writhing silhouette-black with its winding orange-red, and who made the fire do more than merely blaze and quiver. They made the fire chant. They made it sing. She heard the rhythmic _thap_, _thap _of their bare feet pounding the cleared earth, stomping in rhythm and _en mass_. She heard their dance blending with drum and flames' fierce hiss to make a perfect song for the towering ritual fire that licked the sky above the leaves of the trees.

Their dance said more than words ever could. They danced for ecstasy. For Truth. For salvation. In the fire, they burned away their selves, and they found their spirits. They embraced their souls. They danced without reason. They danced without thought. Tonight was the death of thought. Tonight was the birth of fear. The end of everything. Against the dark of her cool little world, Lara saw the vision of a thousand black souls purifying themselves by the light of the fire; burning their way toward renunciation. Ascending toward Nirvana.

She entered the village at the head of their warriors' procession, cradling her Idol like a baby, its crystal headpiece now glowing quite brilliantly in the pure, nighttime dark. She walked before them easily now; regally. Though she didn't consciously realize it, she had grown comfortable at the points of their weapons. Their spears protected her from her own worst instincts. She was like a caged tropical bird for whom escape would mean death in the temperate wild. She had no sense that she was a prisoner at all, but rather a privileged guest. As she emerged into the village, the darkness of the woods began to recede by the light of the fire; and, like the lifting of a bride's veil, her face became gradually illumined.

And the dancing stopped. The people shrieked and pointed and fell to the ground, many of them. Others gasped and blinked their eyes and shook and span in place and looked again. The warriors who had brought her there needed say nothing. They stepped back and vanished anonymously into the crowd thronging around her, keeping themselves at the same respecting, reverent distance as the others. The crowd spoke to one another in whispers, collecting into huddles--never approaching her nor addressing her directly. They stared at her feet, or at her breasts, or at her Idol, but not at her face.

When one villager finally came forward to welcome her--not to idolize or gawk, but to welcome her--he was the most decoratively and elaborately dressed of them. He wore a headpiece made from the jaws of a wolf. The fur of the same animal adorned his back and arms. Animal teeth from perhaps a shark or a mountain cat hung on long strings around his neck. His face was patterned and painted like the warriors', but with more color and complexity. He gazed upon her, meeting her eyes. He entered the sacred circle of personal space the others had left free around her. He walked to her--quickly at first, and then gently. His eyes were warm, full of recognition and kindness. He took her shoulders into his hands.

He said something that Lara only vaguely comprehended. She had studied several Andean languages, but she could hardly comprehend this one. She grasped the fact of a question about 'prophesy' and 'time'; but her mind was as passive as her poise. She could parse no meaning. She stared back at him vaguely, dumbly. She was still wondering, idly, when they might get around to running her through with one of those spears of theirs, or gun her down with one of their stolen machineguns. But in her also--also vague--was the burgeoning realization that what was about to happen would be unlike anything she might have expected at all.

That was when she heard a voice from behind.

"Hello," it said. It spoke in English.

She turned. He was also an Indian.

But of the wrong _type_.

"My name's Bean," he said. "We've all been expecting you."


	8. Chapter Seven: Rites of Passage

"_He was standing all alone_

_Trying to find the words to say_

_When every prayer he ever prayed _

_Was gone._

_And the dreams he's never owned_

_Are still safely tucked away_

_Until tomorrow_

_He just carries on_

_Carries on..._

"_See the devil in the streets at night_

_See him running in the pouring rain_

_See him grinning 'neath the twisted light_

_I'll be back again_...

"_See the devil, he is so intense_

_See the devil go and change his name_

_What's the going price of innocence_

_It can't be the same_...

"_And this he knows if nothing more_

_That waiting in the dark like destiny_

_Are those who kissed the dogs of war_

_And there is no tomorrow_

_No tomorrow_

_Take a chance_..."

**--Savatage.**

CHAPTER SEVEN: "Rites Of Passage."

Colonel Spaulding sat in the Computer Tent, propping his chin on his palm. While Leipig's pudgy fingers fluttered across one of the keyboards nearby, Spaulding's fingers drummed his cheeks. He wished he were anyway but here.

He was more than simply bored, however. There was something altogether eerie about the tent that Leipig seemed blissfully unconscious of. This may have been Leipig's first visit to the Remote Site, but the colonel had been here before, in better days. There had been a time when the tent had been alive with voices and activity. The colonel could stand by, unobtrusively, while technicians chattered their technical talk or jostled convivially for a place in line at the coffee dispenser. Major Leipig would have appreciated these people, the colonel thought. Like him, they had been technicians rather than warriors. Like Leipig, being in Middle-of-Nowhere, Peru, had been a sort of adventure for them. A campout. They had never imagined the dangers here. They had never grasped the Project. Far from the Spartan military ethics that Spaulding espoused, those men and women had cluttered their workstations with colorful knickknacks and memorabilia that he had felt trivialized the importance of their work. They had had long hair, they had spoken disrespectfully, and they had been too soft, or too fat, or too lazy, to be proper soldiers.

But whatever his differences with their civilian way of life, he would never have imagined that such a day as this might come. Their half-empty coffee cups remained on their tables, waiting for drinkers who would never return to them. Their jackets and sweaters remained also, hung over the backs of their empty chairs. Their hats remained, and their papers, and their floppy discs--but the people themselves were gone forever. All that remained of them were the computers that kept humming, kept running, without them. Perhaps they had become ghosts, and were there, even then, haunting Leipig's workstation. They were definitely haunting Spaulding's thoughts.

"Give me the short version," the colonel said.

Leipig had been examining the computer problem that Corbin had described in their mission orders. Spaulding hadn't understood enough of the technical details that the NSA-man had rattled at him to know whether the situation was dire or not. Corbin had seemed to think that there was no way to get the Project started again without catching the little thief who had sabotaged things, but Corbin was often wrong. It would be quite a coup if Spaulding could get around his boss and solve the problem himself. Even if not, it might still be helpful if Leipig could provide him with a common-sense definition of the problem. Either way, tasking the head of the software-side of the Project to go with him to the field had seemed a prudent move, even if it wasn't bearing fruit just yet.

"Mister Corbin was right on the money," Leipig said, stating exactly the opposite of what Spaulding wanted to hear. "There's some kind of virus at work here, that much I can tell you already."

"Can you clean it?" asked Spaulding.

"It's not that simple," said Leipig. "Everything in here's encrypted. It's just how the system works. The data itself isn't important. I can't find the virus because I can't tell the good data from the bad."

"Why can't you?" asked Spaulding. "They can at the Local Site."

"The Local Site has a pretty sophisticated set of algorithms for distinguishing it," Leipig said.

"Naturally," said Spaulding sardonically. "But you've got to be able to give me something, Jeremy."

"Without an isolated description of the virus, I can't tell which code is which, sir," Leipig said. "I need the boy's help. I need his data."

"Damn."

"What I _could_ do is reconfigure the system," Leipig offered.

"What do you mean?"

"I could re-initialize the entire Remote Network," Leipig said. "Let the Local Net reconfigure the whole thing from the ground up. Just start over."

"You mean shut it down?" asked Spaulding.

"Just for a minute," said Leipig.

"No," Spaulding said. "Can't do that. They need constant interaction or 'ka-bluey'. Lab's words."

"Bye-bye Project?" asked Leipig.

"I hope that's what they meant," said Spaulding.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to do what you want, then, sir," admitted Leipig, sadly.

"Keep at it," Spaulding replied. "You've got all night."

Suddenly, a stiff breeze ruffled the tent's stillness. Without having to look, Spaulding knew that Lieutenant Murphy had entered with something urgent to say. That is, it had _better_ be urgent, if Murphy knew what was best for him. The entire Remote Site fiasco was his fault, as far as Spaulding was concerned. He would let the lieutenant make his report, but he suspected that that moment might well turn out to be as good a time as any to take the bite out of his ass that Murphy so desperately needed.

"Sir," said Murphy.

"What's up?" asked Spaulding, swiveling his armchair to face him.

"They've set up ranged reconnaissance on the target, Colonel."

"Great," said Spaulding, waiting to hear why the man had rushed in so. "Do they see something special?"

"Well, sir," stammered Murphy, clearly feeling the colonel's hard and impatient glare. "Maybe you'd better hear it yourself, sir."

Murphy lifted his cap and handed his headset to the impatient colonel.

Spaulding indulgently accepted it and placed it over his ear.

"Spaulding," he said simply.

"_Sir_," replied Cavanaugh's voice. "_I'm at the OP now, overlooking their camp_."

"Okay, Cavanaugh," replied the colonel. "How's their tactical situation?"

"_Same as last time_," said the soldier. "_A few more guns_."

That earned a sympathetic grunt from the colonel.

Murphy swallowed nervously.

Cavanaugh continued, "_About a hundred of them here in all. Maybe more in the woodline and out of range of our starlight scopes. They come and they go_."

"What about the package?" asked Spaulding.

"_It's here_," said Cavanaugh, his tone implying that the ILC was not the only reason for his call.

"And the boy? And the girl?" asked the colonel, narrowing things.

"_Girl's here_. _No boy_," said the soldier.

"Well, that's something, at least," said the colonel. But from the look the colonel was still receiving from Murphy, it seemed apparent that Cavanaugh had not told him everything. Not by a long shot. "Something else?"

"_Well, sir_," said Cavanaugh, "_The girl's sort of surrounded by them. It's a little...odd._"

"She's a prisoner?"

"_Don't think so, sir. Looks more like..._" his voice trailed.

"Like what, son?"

"_Like she's telling 'em bed-time stories, sir,_" Cavanaugh said, his tone anticipating the rebuke that was inevitably on its way.

"She's English, not Ingu," said Spaulding, somehow keeping his disparagement in reserve.

"_Yes, sir,_" Cavanuagh continued, "_but they're gathered all around her like a kindergarten class. I shit you not._"

"Uh-hunh," replied Spaulding. "Well, thank you for the report, son. Stand-by."

He deactivated the headset and returned it to Murphy, eyeing him derisively.

"I just thought you should hear it for yourself, sir, that's all," apologized Murphy.

"Yeah," replied Spaulding, turning back toward Leipig and the computer problem. Even if a bore, at least the technical problems weren't annoying.

"Sir?" asked Murphy. "What should I tell them to do, sir?"

"I take it you have a suggestion?" Spaulding asked, hearing Murphy's familiar eagerness.

"We have good eyes on the objective, sir," Murphy offered. "We have more men and better weaponry. I've studied the terrain pretty well. I think we could set ourselves up into a position that would get us the village in a single assault. We could be done by dawn."

"You think?" replied Spaulding.

"Yes, sir."

Spaulding rolled closer to Murphy on his caster wheels, as if to be more personable.

"Then you recommend we attack, Lieutenant?" Spaulding asked.

"Sir?"

"The last time," said Spaulding, "when you made your botched attempt to hit that village, it was a blood-bath was it not?"

"Yes, sir," replied Murphy, duly chastised.

"What's the difference between then and now, Lieutenant?" Spaulding queried, drilling the officer.

"Well, uh," Clearly, Murphy was puzzled. He must have thought he had already answered this. He surely knew that Spaulding was laying a trap for him of some kind, but he didn't seem to know how to avoid it. "The guns. And more people..."

"And that's...what?" probed the colonel.

"Huh?" asked Murphy.

"Good or bad?" continued the colonel.

Murphy shook his head. He had begun to sweat.

"This isn't rocket science," said Spaulding. "Numerical advantage, technological advantage. Good or bad?"

Murphy stared, still stammering.

"Is it bad to have more people and better guns?" demanded Spaulding, deeply annoyed.

"Well, uh..."

"Then it's _good_ to have more people and better guns, right?"

"uh..."

"Right?"

Murphy still hesitated.

"_Right_..?" insisted Spaulding.

"Right," Murphy said, fatally.

"Wrong."

Murphy swallowed. He was confused and flustered.

"How long do you figure it would take them to realize our technological and numerical superiority?" asked Spaulding.

"Not very long, sir," said Murphy, sullenly.

"Not very long," Spaulding echoed. "And how long do you think it would take before they realize they can't win or escape?"

"I don't know, sir," said Murphy, absently, finally giving up.

"Not long, I assure you," Spaulding said. "And what then? They surrender? Wouldn't that be a nice world? Sure would love to live there. But I don't live there. I live in the real world. Where the enemy doesn't just surrender and say 'hey, sorry 'bout the trouble. Here's your ILC back, fellas.'"

Murphy was staring at the ground.

Spaulding continued, "In the real world they do what I would do, what any one with the common sense God gave a chipmunk would do, and fucking _smash_ the ILC to keep it away from us."

Murphy didn't reply.

"We have to keep them thinking they have a chance to get out of this _alive_ until we can arrange a tactical advantage for ourselves that will allow us to secure the ILC within seconds after contact. Do we have such an advantage in their high-ground village, with only one decent avenue of approach, roving guards, and a population of fanatics-- down to the women and kids?"

"No, sir."

"'No, sir' is right, Lieutenant," Spaulding said. "Remember, we have time on our side. As long as we keep them within three miles of that doo-hicky outside, we're in business. You want orders? Here go my orders: Let your fucking men get some fucking sleep before they go fucking postal on your non-leadership ass! We're going to stand-down until the enemy tries to get sneaky and moves themselves into a _vulnerable_ position. They probably don't know that me and eighteen of my dearest colleges are here to save your worthless butt yet. As long they think there's only six of you out there, they'll eventually try to make a break for it. When they do, we'll line up an ambush and chop 'em into Swiss cheese from the comfort of our own terms, the way _good_ soldiers do it. You got me?"

"Yes, sir."

"You got me?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Now get the fuck out of my AO, you worthless piece of shit."

Murphy span on his heels and quickly stomped out of the tent.

A long silence followed Murphy's exit. Finally, Spaulding granted himself a hard exhalation, and the permission to relax.

He shook his head incredulously.

"Was that really necessary, sir?" asked Leipig.

"He got men killed yesterday, Major," Spaulding said. "He's the reason we're in this mess. He fucked up big time. He's got to know it. He's _got_ to know it. That's _my_ responsibility."

After a moment, Spaulding asked: "What do you think about First Squad's kindergarten class?"

"You mean the villagers?" asked Leipig.

Spaulding nodded.

"Don't know," Leipig said. "Maybe we should ask our resident expert on local customs."

"Yeah, Kini," said Spaulding, musing. "Where did he get to, anyway? I told him to stay close-by."

"I am here, sir."

Spaulding jumped, startled. He hadn't heard him enter. He was swift, smooth, and silent, even when he didn't need to be. Spaulding smiled while he swiveled to face him, happy to have him on _their_ side. He was wondering how his talents might best be utilized.

"Goddamn, son!" said Spaulding. "Aren't you something! You do that just to impress me?"

Kini gazed back, impassively.

Spaulding noted that Kini was wearing his communications headset.

"You been listening in on this?" he asked, pointing at Kini's earphone.

Kini nodded.

"Well," Spaulding asked. "What do you think?"

"You should kill her," Kini said bluntly.

"Is that so?" said Spaulding sarcastically. Kini was stating the obvious.

"Yes," Kini said, humorlessly. Unblinking. Waiting.

Perhaps his meaning was not the most obvious one.

Suddenly nervous, Spaulding politely dismissed the muscular native.

Alone again with Leipig, Spaulding spent a another short moment in thought, questioning alternatives.

Finally, he spoke.

"Major," he said, "I want you to make the Interlocutor mobile. Can you do that?"

"Yes, sir," replied Leipig. "But--?"

"Because I have a feeling we're going to lose our three-mile radius."

"Yes, sir."

Spaulding pointed at Leipig's neck, the wire that seemed to be visible there.

"Do you have your coms?" he asked, already knowing he did. "Give it to me."

Leipig handed him the headset and he activated it, holding it against his ear.

"Murphy, switch to secure."

"_Go ahead, sir,_" said Murphy's voice.

"Relay to Second, Third and Forth Squads that I want extended patrols, going west. Cover that saddle like a blanket. No one gets out. And tell them to keep away from that village."

"_What about my men, sir?_" asked Murphy.

"Maintain rest cycles, but keep them in place for now," Spaulding said. "They move when the ILC moves. But don't move in without orders, you got it?"

"_Yes, sir,_" said Murphy. "_But that's what I had the other squads doing already._"

"You had them staying deliberately clear of that village?"

"_Well, I, uh..._"

"Relay the order, out."

He handed the headset back to Leipig.

"I don't understand," said Leipig. "I thought you were planning an ambush. If they're scattered on patrols . . . that's a big area, sir."

"I don't think I'm going to worry about Lara Croft anymore, Major," Spaulding said. "If Kini means what I think he means, she's just made herself some friends. She's not going anywhere for awhile. We've got eyes on her now in any case. It's the boy we need, and he's the one who's AWOL."

"Maybe he drowned," said Leipig.

"Maybe," replied Spaulding. "But if I was him, I'd either go to that village where I knew they'd protect me or . . ."

"Or . . ?"

"I'd give the girl the ILC as a decoy and hightail it while I knew the heat's on _her_."

"Do you really think he'd give up the ILC so easily to a stranger?" Leipig asked. "I'm sure he knows it's the only way to prove anything."

"True," said Spaulding, "but he may have thought of something we didn't. Hell, he may not have thought that far ahead at all."

* * *

Rainy ran.

And ran.

And ran.

Blind this time.

Dumb this time.

A killer this time.

He didn't have the ILC to reprogram to put them off of his scent.

There was a whole long, black, night before him to run blindly and dumbly through.

To be tracked on their high-tech equipment.

To be chased down like a dog.

This time, the advantage was all theirs. They were night hunters, at home in the dark.

And this time Heaven didn't favor him.

They were going to win. And there was nothing he could do about it.

They'd already murdered most of the people he had ever known. His co-workers . . .

His _family_. There was no use denying it anymore. For four years they had been the only family he had known. Even if they were just engineers and technicians and government employees, and none were his parents, and none were his age, and none really loved him; still, they were the only family he knew. And now they were gone.

If only they had listened. Circumstances had come to prove him right, and them dead wrong. They had been wrong to think that the Project they were doing was good. They had been wrong to think that they could end the Project at any time they wanted. And ultimately, they had been wrong to think themselves too important to the Project to become expendable. Rainy had been right about all of these things. Right enough to know not to rock the boat, but never right enough to convince the others. Especially the one who most needed convincing. They had labeled him paranoid. Had accused him of watching too much television. Of having been _raised_ on television (which he had been). But now they were dead. And he had been right.

Being right had once been enough to drive him, to inspire him, and to encourage him. Being right had been what fired his confidence. In being right, there had seemed a promise of sanction and destiny. A feeling that he had survived for a reason. He was _supposed_ to survive. To escape, and to tell the world. To avenge. That was how it worked for heroes on TV.

When his hands had been clean, he had been exactly that sort of a hero. But twenty minutes ago, by the last light of his worst day, he had _killed. _Somehow, he knew, that had changed things. He knew from television that every hero was either willing to kill or was not. And that every hero who was not willing to kill, if, by change he ever did, betrayed some cosmic morality and was subject to punishment under divine law. To kill as an action hero was righteous. To kill as a pacifist was cowardly. It was a lesson that was taught well on television, and one that had not escaped his impressionable mind. He was a coward, and the cowards always lose. The cowards always die.

It was only a matter of time.

'_It's nothing personal_,' the soldiers had said when they killed the others. While he was barely evading them and escaping. 'It's nothing personal' because they had had no stake in the fight. Because they were just following orders. Because their helpless victims offered no real threat, and he hadn't yet damaged their perfect little eight-man family. But now it _was_ personal. Rainy knew it. He could feel it in his stomach and in his throat. Before, they had chased him down and brought him back purely for the sake if their mission. Even in their abuse of him, they had been merely following orders. But now they would hunt him on principle, torture him for retribution, and kill him for sheer pleasure.

He had been a hunted boy for more than fifteen hours now, but had only been _truly_ afraid for the last twenty minutes.

So he ran.

And he ran.

And he ran.

* * *

The dancers had stopped, though the fire still burned.

The rhythm of the flames' hot, jingling, percussion still seemed to call, but the dancers had found a new fascination. Their dance, Lara sensed, had been a question; and her arrival, it would seem, was the answer. Entranced, they had gathered around the old man's hovel, and they were listening to the strangers' strange, incomprehensible words. They were sprawled about on the ground and in the trees, sitting, laying, standing, holding hands, holding babies, holding one-another. Lara saw their unearthly dark faces. The was a deep contrast between the shadows before them and the blaze behind. To her, they seemed a thronging, collective, singular thing. A phenomenon. Lara felt herself losing something to them. Forgetting herself. Her memories of her life before this moment were becoming dim. Obediently, they were fading. She was wishing for something new. Or something not at all. She had within her a spiritual vacuum that was aching, almost physically, to fill itself. Any new thing would do. Anything at all.

The plaintive, quiet chants of the amorphous people around her buffered her now-thoughts from everything sour in her past. Their mystic voices kept her mind open, elastic, and serene. For the sake of them, the device in her hands was no mere piece of man-made technology; it was truly somehow divine. It was truly an Idol. There was no philosophy in that fact. Her ego was dead, and her soul was alive to everything else. In erasing herself, she had created a longing not merely for truth, but for _foundedness_. Questions that she could never ask in words were being asked in her psyche. Unrequited questions that seemed almost physically to sizzle through the hitherto quiet and well-hidden places of her heart. Places emaciated from a lifetime of neglect.

She didn't know who she was.

She had never dared look inward. She had spent her entire life avoiding it. The enigma of self was an emotional bottomless pit. Religion, poetry, philosophy: Facile tripe to a intellect like hers. But this day had been a very different day. This day she could question herself, and she _did_. And, as she expected, as she had always known, there was no answer. She was hollow. Even a day earlier, such a revelation would have been a traumatic and crippling thing. The stuff of madness. But today, to ask was simply to open the door. To be willing to learn. This asking was, perhaps, the greatest victory of her life. It proved that she was ready. She was empty. Quieted.

He called himself 'Bean'. She had tried calling him 'Mister Bean' once, but he wouldn't have it. His name was Bean, _just_ Bean. He was an Indian, but not an Andean. He was a North American Indian. A Navajo. He was a long way from home. His hair was gray and long and brittle. Physically, he was more than sixty years old, but he was even older in hardened wisdom. His eyes bespoke a pure heart. One that had embraced the truth and had battled frustration in a world that, stubbornly, would not do so. Yet, here, before his hovel in the middle of this Indian village, he _was_ Truth. And his humble realization of that simple fact adorned his brow with a majesty that even the greatest warrior-kings of all of history would have acknowledged. He was a visionary here. A prophet. He sat on his earthen bed-heap, and she sat before him, caressing her glowing Idol. He had her rapt attention, and she had his.

"Do you know why you are here?" Bean asked.

"No, I don't," she said--though, honestly, she hadn't given it much thought.

Bean would not accept such a reply.

"No," he told her, "that won't do. You must try to answer me."

Lara was confused.

"There was a plane crash," she said.

"And?"

"And there were soldiers. And my--"

"No," Bean said, calmly, patiently. "_Why_ are you here. Not how."

"I don't understand," Lara softly protested.

"Behind everything there is both a 'why' _and_ a 'how'," Bean explained. "Most people focus on the 'how' and try not to think too hard about the 'why'. They don't even know what the 'why' is. But you're different. You should know."

"But," protested Lara, meekly, "you can keep asking 'why' forever. There's a 'why' for every 'why' you can think of."

"No," said Bean, "there's a 'how' for every 'how' you can think of. There's only ever one 'why'. Work your way back. _Why_ are you here?"

Lara paused, retreated into herself, and deeply considered.

"I trusted my uncle and he betrayed me," she stated. "That's not a 'how'."

"No," said Bean. "You're getting closer. But that's not a 'why' either. What else?"

She thought about it some more.

"My entire life is a lie," she said. "Uncle Jake is just a part of that. The ugly part."

Bean was nodding.

"A beginning," he said, "a beginning."

* * *

Billy Kang risked freeing a handle bar to turn up the volume on his headset. He obediently listened in on their chatter--their so-called "traffic"--even though all they did was babble on and on about the native camp and the town meeting going on there. Kang listened to their descriptions of 'cult war rituals' and 'fanatical fire ceremonies.' He couldn't believe how fascinated they had all become. He shook his head disparagingly.

Kang always knew that First Squad was a bit flaky. Jim Murphy was the last man for _this_ job. Independent of the command structure? No, First squad was a bad choice. On the other hand, Kang and his fellows in Fourth Squad would have been an ideal choice. Not only would they have simply _taken_ that stupid village on the first night (before they became armed to the teeth), they would hardly need to cushion their poor little egos with bunk about spooky rituals, fanatical death-wishes, and pagan alliances with Satan. It was all of load of horse shit. They were just looking for some excuse for their squad's stupidity. When they got back State-side, heads were _for sure_ going to roll, and Kang intended to be on the correct side of it. Winning the night for his Lieutenant, Wallis, was a sure first step.

Kang gunned his motor a bit to clear a rise. It sure seemed like the terrain had been inclining--though it was impossible, of course. He had the whole map memorized, and the ridgeline didn't ramp up except along a contour more than 100 meters northward. The stars were bright and his NODs--his night observation device, his 'starlight goggles' --were working dead-to-rights. There was no way he'd strayed off course. Unless he'd unwittingly allowed himself to be distracted by First Squad's campfire fables. He wished they'd shut up. It was as though they hadn't realized that no one was listening anymore. Ali was only answering them out of courtesy. He was nice to everyone. Even idiots.

Kang stomped the breaks and stopped abruptly. No matter Cavanaugh's apparent belief otherwise, the natives weren't _all_ in that damned village. They were surely running patrols, too. The colonel had that going for him at least. He had his faults, but tactical proficiency wasn't one of them. He knew there would be enemy to kill in the woods. Enemy like the one who had just cast a silhouette across Kang's path, just ahead and to the right. And, unlike stupid Murphy, the colonel was also able to grasp the compelling reality that it wasn't the villagers in their confident numbers who were the most dangerous, it was the lone straggler out here in the woods. The one willing, eager even, to trade his life for the life of a foreign soldier. Kang wasn't going out that way. The spear-chucker might have seen him first, but Kang would get the last laugh. He killed the engine and dismounted the bike. His MP5, of course, was already in hand.

"Patrol leader, Forty-two," he said into his pickup.

It was just a courtesy. You should always let your supervisor know when you plan kill people.

"_Wallis_," his squad leader replied.

"Wait one," Kang said.

No use giving them the play-by-play. Just as long as they listened. Hell, what if it turned out to be a wild animal, and not a man? No use in competing with First Squad for bad comedy. No, Kang would keep them on the edges of their seats for a bit, and would reserve his bragging rights for later. His green starlight video image unveiled what darkness and enemy cunning had hoped to conceal. And it was better than just some native: Kang saw the seam of a leg of a pair of blue jeans behind that thin veil of bushes. He chuckled coldly. He had known all along that with Fourth Squad on the ground it was going to be a short night.

"All right Rainy," Kang said. "I see you. Be a smart little genius and come out. Don't make me come after you. Because I won't. You know what I mean?"

He racheted back the action on his MP5, just for clarification.

The blue jeans didn't budge.

Suddenly, Kang realized he had just done something he never thought he'd ever do. He had been aiming his MP5 to a put a bullet where it properly belonged--in Rainy's speedy ass--when he recalled Colonel Spaulding's rather inconvenient insistence that the boy _not_ be shot. It suddenly occurred to Kang that his murderous threat, which even he himself had believed, was actually no more than a toothless bluff.

He grunted, sighed, shouldered the MP5, and started walking into the woods after Rainy.

* * *

"I bet you can guess my next question, can't you?" Bean said.

Lara shook her head.

Bean smiled, and gently asked, "_who_ are you."

"My name is Lara Croft," she said.

By his patient smile, she knew she had gotten it wrong again.

"Now," Bean said, "you didn't really think I was asking for your name, did you?"

"No," whispered Lara, "I suppose not."

"So why did you answer that way?"

"I'm not sure what you want," Lara sighed. "You're a very strange man, you know that."

"Of course I do. And it's true," Bean admitted. "But a deflection. So, why your name?"

"I had to say something, didn't I?"

"Did you?"

Lara smiled.

"I suppose I could have just stared at you, blank-faced--"

"Then, why not?" he asked--quite seriously.

"Would silence have been the answer?"

"You tell me."

"I can't," she groaned quietly. She realized only then how she was subtly caressing the Idol in her arms. She noticed it only because Bean had noticed it. Their eyes both dropped towards its delicate glow.

"With you, everything has to be one way or the other, doesn't it?" Bean asked, drawing her eyes back into his.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm willing to bet that you can't even go out sight-seeing without a good map, can you?" he said. "Or play a game without the rules."

"A game without rules?" she protested. The idea very offended her. "It wouldn't even _be_ a game if there weren't rules."

"Non-sense. Games don't need rules."

"Certainly," Lara chided , "presuming you're four years old."

"I'm talking adult games."

"Sport games?"

"Any games."

"Football?" she gasped, "Cricket? _Tennis_ without rules?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"You'd have nothing but _chaos_ on the field!"

"Isn't chaos a game?"

His question stunned her.

"No!"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because!"

She didn't have an answer. But that in itself didn't mean the madman was right. And if his last remarks had seemed confusing, he may as well have been speaking word-salad when he then asked:

"Do you believe in God?"

"Do I..." Lara stammered, trying to process the question. "What?"

"A Christian God? An Eastern God? A Hindu God? Something?"

Lara only tentatively replied. This was clearly a spiritual man, and she certainly wished to avoid offensive.

"I suppose," she said, hearing her own angry doubt poking through, despite her conscious effort to suppress it.

"I believe in a lot of gods," Bean continued gaily, apparently unoffendable. "I try not to discriminate. They get touchy."

"I do go to church," Lara offered. "You know. On Easter. Christmas. That sort of thing."

"Eh," Bean said with a shrug, "that's sort of what I mean. Listen, Lara, to the gods, everything's a game. You see? You've got good, and evil, and whatever else you want, and it's all just thrown into the mixer. By the time we actually even see any of it, they're long done. The gods are finished playing. But you, and me, and every other dumb mortal, we just somehow get the notion in our heads that our human rules apply on their divine playground. Whatever we see of the game is long after-the-fact. The rules have already been played out--and there's not a dog-gone thing any of us can do about it."

Now it was Lara's turn to be offended.

"I thought we were talking about games," Lara said. "You know? Games _people_ play. Competition. Sport."

"No difference."

"But you're talking about the universe, Bean," she insisted, "not--"

"There's no difference," he said. "We don't see it because we're too close to it. The whole universe is a game."

Lara scoffed at first. But then she sighed and let herself contemplate it. To her own surprise, she found herself able to accept it. At least in part.

"It is perfectly ironic, isn't it?" she mused, darkly. "All the games I've played. Endless streams of them. And there I was, thinking that if could just win them. Win my way into heaven. Those petty little human fantasies. I could..."

She found herself too embarrassed to even complete the thought.

"But, you're right, it never ends," she admitted, coldly. "I'm sick to death of games."

"That's because you don't know how to play," Bean said. "_You_ play against your _opponents_, and there's always more of _them_. Winning isn't the end. Winning isn't even the point. It's just a direction to go--so you don't step on the other players' feet. You've got to learn to take a lesson from the gods. Whether they win or not, they're still immortal."

"But _I'm_ not."

"Sure, you are."

"I'm a god?"

"You're immortal," he said. "We all are."

She realized he was expressing a religious truism. One she wasn't sure she could accept.

Bean smiled. And stopped, abruptly.

"Fear can kill," he said.

Lara felt a cold rush. For a non-sequitur, it had all the chilling certainty of gospel.

"It's what the gods know that we don't," Bean said. "You see it every day. Whether you're fighting a war or just trying to earn a decent living. You put on a gameface, and you go out there in the world, and you play the part in the game that you think everybody expects to see. You do it all for fear. 'Cause you're scared of what might happen if you don't. It's like you think there's nobody that knows it's a game but you, and if they figure it out, they might change the rules around on you. That's the sick part. That's the part that kills."

Lara was fascinated. But she still didn't know why.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"The only true rules in the whole universe are the ones the gods play by, Lara," Bean explained. "You can break human rules the any time you want to. The world will go on just fine without you. You can't let yourself get all worked up over stuff like this. You ever hear of some of those war heroes who just throw themselves into the fire? Yeah, sure, a lot of them just get cooked. But sometimes, some of them, the best of the them, wind up doing the fighting of a hundred men. Winning. And living. For a brief little shining moment, those people are really alive. They broke the rules and truly embraced the game. Not the human game, though; the _gods'_ game. It's not failing to _keep_ to the rules that kills you, Lara, it's failing to _break_ the rules. You have to play for the _play_, and not for the winning. If you only play to win, there's nothing for you except _to_ lose. The way the gods play, you have to love winning; _not_ fear losing. Then the rules won't even matter anymore. It quits being a game. It's just play."

"Why are you telling me these things?"

"Because games are important to you, Lara," Bean said. "But you play all wrong. Right now, you think you want quit playing. But that's death. You can't go back, and you can't pretend like nothing's happened. But you never thought about breaking the rules, did you? Just breaking them, and going on."

"But I don't know how to do that."

"Yes, you do," Bean gently assured her. "Of course, you do. It's who you are."

"You don't even _know_ who I am!" Lara protested.

"Sure, I do."

Lara was shocked. She stared at him as he explained:

"These people told me. And I believe them. They've been expecting you for a thousand years."

"A thousand years?" she gasped. "What the hell are you talking about? I'm here by accident."

"You're no accident," Bean said. "You need to get _that_ through your head now. These people need you."

"Me? For what?"

"You're their savior."

* * *

Rainy froze.

There was no doubt in his mind anymore: The gods were real. How else could Kang, or Ross, or Sydwinsky, or whoever this tall, lanky son of a bitch was, spot him? From a moving motorcycle? In the dark? Behind ferns thicker than bushes? The gods _were_ real, and they loathed him. This was beyond hatefulness, even for a god. This was sick.

He was being tempted.

He was being taunted.

_What are you going to do, Rainy? What are you going to do?_ their sadistic chorus seemed to be saying in his mind.

Trekking, Rainy had run straight into the foot of a steep cliff, thirty feet high. Thinking himself clever, he had saved himself the time of walking around by monkey-hugging his way up a nearby tree-trunk, knowing its branches reached well over into safety above the cliff-top. He would amble out to a limb's end, and, literally, crawl out of the edge-brush at thirty feet higher than he had started. As a twelve-year-old genius, rarely had the twelve-year-old part been the part to brag about. That one extra little bit of pride, perhaps, had been the single sin that, when added to his others that night, had drawn down the gods' vindictive attentions.

There was no doubt anymore. The soldier had seen him.

And so it was decision time.

He was coming straight for him. His monocular night-scope, like a spider-face mask on the man-monster's head, gave him no depth perception. As he strode through the brush, as confident as death itself, Rainy knew he could in no ways see how his would-be boy-prey was not on the cliff, nor even above the cliff, but rather was actually several feet _past_ the cliff. Hanging safely out of reach on a tree branch. Chances were, the poor dumb bastard couldn't even _see_ the cliff. Five steps short of reach, and the score would be Rainy: two/Soldiers: zero.

It would be murder again. Or would it? Could this really be Rainy's own fault? Guilt by omission.

"No!" Rainy cowardly blurted--but it was worse than too late.

Stunned by the outburst, the soldier stiffened and leaped back. _Tried_ to leap back. Instead, his feet kicked out the edge of the cliff before him. He spilled with the falling dirt, right over the edge. He fell silently. Too shocked, or perhaps too ashamed, to even cry out his last.

He impacted massively at the bottom and died--his neck, gruesomely, broken.

* * *

"It's all in their Old Words," Bean explained. "Forget whatever you think you know. About these people. About yourself. The moment you arrived, you started writing history here. You didn't choose this destiny, it chose you."

"Bean," Lara said, "you're not making any sense. A savior? I can't even save myself."

Bean's eyes seemed to come alive before her as he raised his gaze higher and higher. She saw, reflected in his eyes, the dance-fire's flame.

"You still don't understand," he said--awakening a thirst in her like nothing she'd ever felt before.

"Explain it to me."

"Before the beginning of time," Bean said, "the greatest of all the gods, Qawalapeque, created the land and the seas. The people worshipped him, but he despised them, and destroyed them all except for a handful who hid in the wilderness. Qawalapeque thought that he had finished them all, so he pulled up the land around himself for a blanket, creating the mountains, and went to sleep. If he were ever to awaken, and learn that the people have survived his wrath, he would do it all again, and be more thorough this time. No one would survive. These people have lived here since almost the day when Qawalapeque first went to sleep. They've been guarding his sleeping place with their lives, hiding from the outside world since time began. They are proud and are warriors, but they're no match for these men. They've got too many guns. If they aren't stopped, they'll wake up the great mountain god, and everyone will die."

"What are you talking about?"

"Their machines, Lara," Bean said. "They're tickling Qawalapeque's feet. They might as well be building a fire-pit under his toes. He'll awaken and destroy the world."

Bean pointed at the painted man with the wolf's-jaws head-dress. The one who had attempted to speak with Lara when she had first arrived. The man was nodding eagerly then, as if he understood Bean's words. Lara could see it in his eyes that he didn't speak Bean's English, but she could also see his implicit trust. His trust in him to speak their words, to plead their desperate case.

"That one is their seer," Bean said. "He foresaw everything. He foresaw _you_. He can hear Qawalapeque moaning, even now. The mountain god is gonna wake up soon, if the machines aren't stopped. You can walk away if you want to, Lara, but this was the day you were born for."

"What do I do?"

* * *

It was counter-intuitive, and even ghoulish; but something--other than himself--urged, _forced_, Rainy to shimmy back down the narrow tree-trunk rather than doing the only sensible thing and making a break for the dead soldier's motorcycle. Something powerful and compulsive. He didn't understand at all until he hit the ground running, dashed to the corpse, took its bloody headset, and heard its first ghastly radio crackle:

"_Kang? Kang?_"

It was Wallis' voice.

Rainy strained to remember exactly how Rico had worded it.

"Yeah, yeah," Rainy bellowed, as closely imitating as he could the voice of a man twenty years older than himself. It strained his throat, and he nearly coughed on his own effort. "I'm here. Clear at, eh, clear at forty-two."

There was a pause. Rainy, for moment, feared he may have cost himself everything with this gag. He could have been long gone on that motorcycle before they arrived; but, if they were to suspect him now, there be no time to get back up to the cliff-top before they were swarming the area, searching for him.

To his relief, he heard:

"_You okay?_"

"Fine," Rainy lied. "Had to take a piss."

"_You stay on that goddamned line, you hear me?_"

"Uh, right."

And the line went quiet!

They wouldn't be coming after him after all! And it suddenly sunk in: They wouldn't _ever_ be coming after him! He not only had a motorcycle to evade them with and make incredible time, he also had a radio he could use to ensure that he was never in the same places they were! Climbing the tree this time, Rainy felt weightless. Climbing down the tree and securing the radio had been a divinely inspired move, there could be no doubt. Obviously, one of his hateful gods had turned out to be not-so-hateful after all. He decided to make it a point to figure out which one it had been, and convert.

* * *

Lara slept beneath the fire.

Bean had explained what she must do, and she had understood. For the first time in her life, Lara had a purpose. Everything about her that was unique and unparalleled was about to be called upon. But until tomorrow she would sleep. Sleep; and steel herself for the challenges awaiting her.

And she would dream of what lurks beneath a giant's blankets.


	9. Chapter Eight: Twilight

"_A hum in the ear_

_Numbness comes_

_Feeling like you're almost home_

_The open arms_

_The tempting embrace_

_It's always been _

_waiting_

"_The sufferings here_

_The wait is gone_

_The streets are filled _

_With the hollow souls_

_Empty world_

_Of listless night_

_I pray to thee_

_I suffer blind_

"_Waiting at the end of time for you..."_

**--Danzig.**

**CHAPTER EIGHT:** "Twilight."

The forest's cold floor was nestled against him, holding in no more than that small amount of warmth that let a man feel like a man. To be able to relax with nothing but thin a cotton uniform between yourself and some other country's strange foreign soil was one of the best tests of a soldier's mettle. Not because soldiers were the only people who could lay comfortably on their bellies in the green of a stranger's forest flora, but rather because it was only a soldier who could find such uncomplicated pleasure in the act. Doc was grateful to lay prone in Heaven-only-knew what sorts of plants, being devoured by Heaven-only-knew what sorts of insects. It was the most rest he'd had all day.

He wished he were sleeping with the rest of his squad in their hasty patrol base a few meters away, but it was his turn at watch. He had been watching the native camp for no more than an hour, but even that short time awake had felt like an eternity. The others were enjoying the first sleep that anyone in First Squad had been granted in over twenty-four hours. Lieutenant Murphy had seemed certain that if he could just keep the mission driving forward, the time they'd save forgoing rest would pay off in letting them get back States-side sooner. They wouldn't be able to remain gone for much longer before people back home started asking difficult questions.

The problem with being an operations force that didn't actually exist was that the people within it actually _did_ exist. They had families and obligations back home. Some even had real jobs. Sure, the government had arranged their discharges from their original Active Duty units, each troop along with his own (often very conspicuous) 100 -of-pay medical or legal pension--making it so that no one actually _had_ to work if he didn't want to--but who could live like that? Many were attending college or working for companies. Some ran their own businesses. Doc himself worked for a non-profit that helped finance political radicals in San Francisco. The Government didn't care what you did on the side, as long as you were there when the call came.

Why didn't Uncle Sam simply keep them all sequestered on Fort Bragg or some other damned place? Because it wasn't worth the risk. They needed the unit's existence hidden from everyone, including other units in the military. Including the rest of the government. The unit was designed purely as a contingency--just in case. But if they ever actually _did_ need it, by God, it had better be there, ready to go that minute. Trained, equipped, and completely unnoticed. They were called "sleepers," even though they were called into duty several times each month for test alerts and training exercises. It had been an extremely sweet-sounding deal when it was first offered to him--a young, dumb, Green Beret with ideas of his own--but this wasn't his idea of fun anymore. He wanted to get back into "sleep" mode. Preferably literally for a while. And then get his ass back home.

He'd been nodding in and out of consciousness most of his shift, but he wasn't aware he had fallen completely asleep until Cavanaugh's voice stirred him and he realized he'd been dreaming of San Francisco--how he'd explain all of this to the other brothers in the Center. What would they think if they could see him there, the youngest and boldest new voice on the block, laying in the dirt, being ordered around by a white man in a uniform?

"Doc," said Cavanaugh. "Doc!"

Cavanaugh shook him.

"I'm awake," he lied. "What's up?"

"You seeing that?"

Instead of admitting he didn't know what Cavanaugh was talking about, he looked through his tripod-mounted, starlight-amplified telescope--back into the camp. Their fire had died down considerably. The villagers were all asleep. He didn't see what Cavanaugh was talking about.

By Doc's lack of reply, Cavanaugh must have known he hadn't been paying attention.

"Near the fire. You see it?"

Doc scanned the sleeping village from left to right.

"No, man," he said.

"There!" said Cavanaugh. "On the fire's eleven o'clock.

Doc adjusted his angle on the scope and blinked his eyes to clear them. He noticed that there was an oddly incongruent shadow at an eleven o'clock angle from the fire; but, since he knew that any partly lit up section of the forest was bound to be full of such shadows, he didn't suspect it was anything more than a large, coarsely shaded sapling, or some other equally innocuous object. He was about to plead ignorance when it suddenly began to move.

"Yeah," Doc said. "I see it. What is it?"

"_Who_ is it," corrected Cavanaugh.

And then Doc, too, could suddenly make out the face.

"Jesus," he said.

Cavanaugh tapped his radio headset and transmitted to Murphy: "You better wake up the colonel."

* * *

In her dream, she was all in white. A lacy saffron dress with a willowy train and veil.

Her path inclined gently in places and terribly steeply in others. Her parched flesh throbbed beneath a hating sun that was a far darker orange than what could really be. She had trudged her way up the mountain, step after weary step, while the air she could barely breathe hung too heavy and burned too hot. Behind her were the thousands. The millions. An uncountable, silent, reverent crowd. They had followed her here, to the top of the world, where their path was narrowing into a cliff. Beyond that edge, there was nothing but the view of a brutalized, scalded, smoking, wasted Earth. She glanced about herself, breathing deeply, seeing the grim end of her long journey. While they watched, met her gaze, and believed, she stepped to the edge of the precipice. She held her breath. She closed her eyes. And she jumped.

She never hit bottom. In a few moments, she realized she wasn't even falling.

She opened her eyes.

She hadn't moved from the cliff's edge.

She heard a voice, and span.

It was Bean. He said: "_The sacrifice is complete_."

Her eyes went past him, to the millions.

They were all dead.

* * *

Lara awoke, startled.

Kini was there.

His black T-shirt was matted with sweat. He was missing his uniform's blouse and all of his load-carrying equipment. He was bare-headed, with no radio headset. By the fire's embers, his strong arms glistened orange and black with sweat. He was a tribal warrior to her now, rather than the slick mercenary he had once seemed. She feared him. He looked feral. Barbaric. He was kneeling beside her, leaning over her, holding high his foot-long knife--aiming carefully for her just-woken heart. The sparkling blade trembled in his shaking, two-fisted grip.

He stabbed--

But Lara was quicker. She simultaneously stopped the blade in the air and leaped to her feet, yanking up his wrists until he was helpless and off-balance. For that stunning moment, he was completely defenseless. He was utterly unprepared for her lightening speed. Frankly, so was she.

The village was awake in an instant, hearing the scuffle.

"No!" Kini cried out. "You must..._No!_"

But before he could regain his balance and claim the benefits of his greater size, strength, and height, the villagers were all around him. In a second, they had reinforced Lara's grip on his wrists a dozen times over. They took control of his waist and his hips, and even his shins, ankles, and knees. He was cemented in place.

"No!" Kini cried out, and he then yelled something in his native language--something harsh and deprecating. While the others pulled him back and buried him beneath themselves, he screamed at them. Soon their weight crushed quiescent silence into him. Heavy tears flowed from his eyes.

Lara had listened, but had failed to understand his words for their anguish. Those few words she did pick out of the jumble, she did not believe. She listened more carefully as the villagers lifted themselves to give him at least the space to breathe--but by then he was less speaking than whimpering.

Lara only then felt the adrenaline of the moment. It was as though she had doubted the attack had been anything more than an extension of the bizarre dreams which had been plaguing her sleep the whole night. It was only as a group of village boys suddenly returned with Kini's gear--his load bearing vest, his radio, and his firearms--that it began to sink in why the attack had felt so surreal.

By then, Bean was standing beside her, staring down at where Kini was being restrained.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

"Fine," Lara replied, nervously. "A little puzzled."

She glanced toward her Idol, still resting peacefully in the village alter. The wolf's-head seer had gone there during the commotion and was bowing and chanting to it quietly. Seeing the Idol safe, and seeing the seer attending it, was easing for Lara for reasons she couldn't quite apprehend.

"I didn't see him until he was right on me," Lara said. "The device is what they want. He could have easily taken it."

"He didn't come for their reasons," Bean said.

"Then, why did he come?" Lara asked.

"He came because of you."

"A strange risk," Lara mused darkly. "I fought him once. He knew what he'd get."

But she wasn't sure if even _she_ believed that. She had been lucky.

"He could have shot me from woods."

"No, he couldn't have."

It was odd enough to hear such a mundane tactical statement from the otherwise mystically- oriented Bean. Odder still for his seeming absurdity. From the woodline, she would have been an easy target. He could have grabbed the Idol while they slept, shot her on the way out, and could have vanished into the woods by the time any of his people had realized what he had done. He had maneuvered, undetected, through the village's considerable security just to get to the perimeter. It must have taken hours of patient stealth. And he had thrown it all away. A fool could see that Kini had risked everything, pointlessly. But, rather than contradict Bean, Lara turned her attention to their new prisoner, who was clearly Bean's chief concern as well. Bean hadn't stopped staring at their captive. And, though Kini would seem restrained enough now, Bean still looked deeply concerned.

"What's he saying?" Lara asked, still unable to parse meaning from Kini's mumbles and sobs.

"Cowardly lies," Bean replied.

The natives bound Kini with foreigners' rope, and they refuted his angry sobs and curses with soothing assurances that wouldn't seem to be having much effect on him. Soon even the seer joined them--though assuaging Kini with phrases that sounded less like counter-arguments than magic spell-antidotes to his scathing blasphemy.

Lara suddenly realized she was hearing a word repeated over and over.

"'Qawalynn'?" she asked. "I have no idea what that is."

"I'll bet there're lots of Ingu words you don't know," Bean said.

Lara took a step toward Kini, and said: "I want to talk to him."

But by then the seer was ordering a gag placed into his mouth. The whimpering suddenly stopped, and along with the silence there came a sudden release of tension. The village seemed restored to a peace that Lara decided she didn't want to break.

"Maybe later."

Meanwhile, the nearest villagers, who had seemed to be holding their breath--symbolically holding their ears--while Kini had ranted, now breathed easily and joined the work Lara hadn't realized the others had already started: Gathering children, gathering supplies. Something was happening. And Lara wasn't the only one who noticed it. The seer had suddenly shifted his view from Kini, to the village around him, and then to Bean--who returned it with tacit agreement.

The seer was then about to make ready their new prisoner, but his eyes traveled only as far as Lara's--where they lingered. At that moment, there came to his countenance such a glowing expression of how his hopes in her had been both fully realized and wholly justified, that Lara thought she might never recover her proper humility again. She hoped to bask in that gaze longer, but he looked away. Sadly, Lara had a feeling that she would never see that face on him again.

Still, it had been enough. Lara felt refreshed, eager. Ready.

When Bean then said "it's time to go, now," the announcement didn't come as surprise. Instead, Lara felt as though she had been anticipating it. She was enthusiastic and motivated. She went with them when they left the village, following Bean, who followed the seer. And the entire rest of the village came with them--including Kini, gagged and bound.

* * *

"Major Leipig?" the lieutenant whispered, "Major Leipig?"

Leipig didn't stir. He snored comfortably, deeply asleep on a cot in the sleeping tent.

Murphy tried gently shaking him.

"Major?"

"What?" gasped the major, "Oh..? What? No, I'm awake."

He turned and focused his sleepy eyes on the lieutenant, who was barely visible in the tent's single-lightbulb's worth of light.

"What is it, eh...Lieutenant?"

The major was speaking at his full voice, but the lieutenant continued to whisper.

"I wanted to ask you, sir--"

"Ask me--ask me what?"

He still wasn't quite awake.

"Did you finish the modifications you were doing on the..."

"The what, on the, ah..?" He blinked his eyes and shook his head, feeling around for his soft cap to cover his bald spot.

"...on the Interlocutor device?" the lieutenant asked.

"Yes, he did," said a stronger voice. More distant. More stern.

The lieutenant stood respectfully.

"Sir," he said.

"What do you want, Lieutenant?"

"The villagers are on the move," he reported.

"Okay," the colonel replied.

"The girl and the ILC are with them."

"So are your men, I hope."

"Yes, sir."

"Something else?"

"I've got...a...idea," Murphy offered tentatively.

"I'm listening."

"I believe I know their destination."

"Is that right?"

"They're heading in the direction of the, um," stammered Murphy, fishing his map from his uniform's back pocket, "the, ah, this clearing here."

He pointed at the map.

"At the foot of this mountain."

"Okay."

"The clearing is completely surrounded by high-ground, sir," Murphy explained. "There's only one real way in or out."

"Sounds familiar," said Spaulding, yawning.

"Yes, sir, except--" he closed the map and made eye contact with colonel, "--_they're_ not there yet."

The colonel paused. He jutted his jaw in thought, bit his lip and hummed thoughtfully.

"They won't get there before dawn, we're predicting," the lieutenant said.

"Are you _sure_ that's where they're going?" the colonel asked.

"Well, you know, I mean, we can't say absolutely," said the lieutenant. "But the site staff kept a pretty regular log of the natives' activities over the years. They only went to a couple places all at once. This clearing is one, and its the only one in the direction they're heading."

"Where are our people?" he asked.

"All over the area, sir," Murphy said.

"Can they get there first?"

"_Easily_, sir."

The colonel nodded.

"Alright," he said, "do it."

"Yes, sir," Murphy said. "And one other thing, sir."

"What?"

"Kini's with them. They captured him. It looks like he was trying to kill the girl."

"Damned fool," the colonel sighed. "Good initiative. But damned foolish."

"Should we attempt a rescue, sir?"

"Fuck no!" the colonel said. "'You's pays your money, you's takes your chances.' Shit."

"Yes, sir."

"No," continued the colonel, musing--obviously still considering the possibility. "Too risky. Can't afford to tip 'em off. Not when we're _this_ close. No. He'll have to look out for himself."

"Yes, sir."

"Get out, get on it," Spaulding said, dismissing the lieutenant with a wave of his hand. "Keep me apprised."

"Yes, sir," said the lieutenant, turning to leave.

"Oh, and Lieutenant," the colonel called, "for now, consider yourself _off_ my shit-list."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

For Rainy, it had been a long night of betrayals. Curses disguised as blessings.

This motorcycle between his legs...

This radio in his ear...

He had thought that if he could just get clear of the soldiers, he could gun the motorcycle for all it was worth and be clear of the valley, the mountains, _the nightmare_, by daybreak. But he hadn't considered how much more cautious he would have to be. A motorcycle is a lot louder than a pair of feet, despite these models' extraordinary muffled engines. It was a devil's blessing. He would have made better time on foot. He'd been inching his way through the woods for hours.

And the radio--his second 'blessing'--had only added fright to plight. By allowing him to hear his pursuers' every move, it had sabotaged what had been his one true blessing: his ignorance. Ignorance that might have given him the courage to take the blind, but necessary, chances he needed to in order to cross the valley. What ground he gained came only slowly, after long, scared minutes spent listening and watching. Listening to them saying where they were searching, and if they had seen any sign of him. If they suspected Kang's death. If they suspected Kang's imposture. He had wasted his whole night playing cat and mouse. The whole sleepless, merciless night. He was battling stress and the killing need for sleep. Every hundred meters had seemed worth a congressional medal for bravery. Heart pounding and mind racing, he had listened to the radio--to the damned radio--listening, listening. He would gun his bike in short bursts, deliberately crash, and then breathe a heavy sigh of relief when he felt himself vanish into the deep, concealing shadow of the ferns. And yet he couldn't bring himself to throw the radio away, either. It took the first shimmerings of daybreak to awaken him to the fact that he had wasted the whole night.

But, finally, his chance was before him. The chance he had been aching for the whole frightening night long. The radio now told him that all of the activity in the valley was going on behind him. None of the soldiers were this far out. No one suspected he'd make it this far without being seen. Before him was the saddle: the sunken space between the two smallest mountains where there was walkable terrain all the way to the sea. A few weeks before, his colleagues had even joked about how someday a group of sightseers might park their yacht, hike over the saddle, and walk into their camp for a picnic--so easily traversable the saddle was. In the end, they might as well have been those miles underground for how easy escape across the saddle had been for them; but, for Rainy, the hope the saddle offered was quite real. And quite immediate. It was time to make a last mad dash for the sea and salvation.

But, at that point, the gods must have gone into a last-minute committee.

The troops were being recalled. Rainy at first rejoiced. The heat was finally off of him! And just in time for his great escape! But then he understood why. He understood what had just happened. What the natives were doing. What the soldiers had planned for them. With Lara Croft in the middle. Suddenly his victory seemed very sour. Very ignominious. He had thought he had an ally among the gods, but he realized he didn't. Not one was ever really on his side. His seeming better fortunes had been no more than their shifting their avenue of attack. They were killing him with conscience now instead of bullets. Undermining his spirit with temptations instead of tormentors.

He was a pacifist who had killed twice, and only heroes get to kill.

Rainy was scared.

But what could he do? Could he really survive an army of murderous assassins? And besides, did the native people have any real chance at all without a voice on the outside to cry their case? Was there anything practical to be gained from throwing his own life away pretending to be the hero he could never possibly successfully become?

What did his conscience tell him?

It told him a lot.

There was only one option.

He took a deep breath, started the engine, and rode.

* * *

"Roger," whispered Cavanaugh, "Still got eyes on the target. Checkpoint confirmed. Moving on to next position."

He spoke into his microphone pickup, cupping it with his palm to muffle the sound. His other hand pushed through the foliage as he prepared to lift his belly from the soil.

"Let's get ready to move," whispered Doc to the others, glancing over his shoulder. He had already risen from the dirt, and was kneeling, glancing around. Bouncing. Staying alert.

The procession of natives had been on the move for more than an hour now, walking slowly, dirgefully, through the woods. First Squad had been tracking them the whole way. Murphy had radioed his prediction of their probable course, and Cavanaugh had led his men to Murphy's checkpoints. At each checkpoint, the soldiers had waited until the natives caught up--and then they had proceeded to the next. So far the natives had conformed to Murphy's predictions within a tolerance of a less then a hundred meters. They were heading right where Murphy said they were heading.

Right into the trap.

* * *

At the camp on the river island, the winds whipped ferociously.

The sun was just breathing its first glimmers on the far eastern horizon, bouncing its bluish glow across the bottom bowls of the farthest clouds. Thin tendrils of light creeped west behind the wrinkled fabric of the sky. The air was blue and hazy and cool. Misty, and vaguely foggy.

Leipig lugged a briefcase in both hands, badgered by the ferocious winds the helicopter was whipping up in the camp. He held the case closely to his body, as though it were very valuable and not nearly durable enough for the abuses of field use. He stumbled out of the Computer Tent, using the briefcase to block the winds and debris. His softcap was about to be ripped from his scalp and whisked away by the winds when the colonel, close on his heels, suddenly snatched it swiftly from his head, pocketed it, and eyed the careless major sternly. Leipig hid his face behind the wind-breaking briefcase.

Lieutenant Murphy approached from the helicopter, guarding his eyes with his hand.

"Are you ready, sir?" the lieutenant yelled over the winds, leaning close.

"Yes," shouted back Leipig, shaking the briefcase. "We should hurry. They're almost out of range now."

The three boarded the helicopter and flew away--after stepping over deep tracks in the dirt: left where the Interlocutor had earlier been dragged to the helicopter and loaded aboard.


	10. Chapter Nine: The Gauntlet

"_Initiate, blood purge_

_Coalition in massacre_

_Mechanized, high tech_

_Whole sale death in effect_

_Mutually, assured_

_Destruction will occur_

_Genocide, revised_

_Same pain through diverse eyes..._

"_Without a reason to fight_

_A time to kill_

_Sick lust for skeletal flesh_

_A taste for all decay_

_Enter the soldier blind_

_Stalking the faceless hunt_

_There is no conscience in this world_

_That can be reached for peace_

"_Why face the human question_

_The need to hate_

_Dead stare through cynical eyes_

_A trust in only pain_

_Murder within the skin_

_Engrave the art of war_

_Become death's vile parade_

_March on embrace the violent mind_

"_Can't stop the warring factions_

_Can't stop the warring factions_

_Hostile from the start_

_Always war always_

_Ending bitter peace..."_

**--Slayer.**

**CHAPTER NINE:** "The Gauntlet."

Lara and Bean had time to chat.

The procession of villagers was so large and was moving so slowly that it hardly made sense to keep quiet. Although the other villagers may not have had much to share with each other, Lara had dozens of questions to ask Bean; and plenty of philosophy to share. These were conversations like none Lara had ever experienced. She had told him about her feisty and pragmatic competitiveness. The virtues and pitfalls of a life dedicated to the pursuit and development of personal potentials. She told him how empty and useless her philosophy had left her feeling by the end. It was a topic that might otherwise have been depressing for her, were it not for Bean's reassurance and guidance. He instructed her that running out of options for solving problems was not the same thing as failing. One needed to constantly reevaluate one's situation from the "perspective of the gods," using the eyes of faith.

Faith was new concept for Lara.

She knew all about doctrinal "faith". Religion was no different than any other subject in her long repertoire of academic pursuits. She could catalogue the attributes of every major religion and sect and contrast each to all of the others according to their sociological, economic, historical, and doctrinal contexts. Personally, she had been a member of the Anglican Church since her baptism in infancy; though she, admittedly, had only rarely attended services when not directly asked to do so by friends or family. She had never once "experienced" religion. Never an epiphany. Never a conversion. Not before that night.

It was not that she had been "converted" to Bean's belief system, or his religion, or to whatever it was that informed his ideals--whatever such a faith may have been--but she had been converted to the susceptibility of _having _faith. As a broad, general potential. It was a new potential. One entirely unlike her athletic and academic potentials. It was, indeed, a completely fresh territory to explore.

And she had been too caught up in the celebration of the moment to think about much else.

Such as where they were going.

Or why.

Her confidence soaring, and eager to hear more, she questioned Bean about everything: Where had he grown up? Why was he there in South America with a lost tribe called the "Ingu"? What did all this mean? Bean laughed when he told her all about his life as a hand on a bean plantation near a New Mexico Indian Reservation. About how he had heard the Voice of God in the wilderness and had pursued it in his thirst for Knowledge. About the great adventure his life had become from that day forward, absorbed in his quest after Truth. As for what it all meant, he thought he might never fully understand himself until he chanced a dangerous visit to a beautiful angel. She had told him where to look for his answers. She had told him to come to this place. She would eventually find him here; and, if he were righteous enough and deserving, she would take him away into Heaven. He seemed completely confident that this was going to happen. Serenely confident.

As for the other men, the soldiers, they had found this place, too--because of him, somehow; though he never quite explained exactly how. For the same reasons this place was such a potent source of spiritual power, the soldiers believed it could also give them great power in the world. In their greed and hate, they had come intending only to exploit it for all it may be worth. When Lara asked how this could be possible, Bean only replied: "even they do not know." For Bean, it was the Old Words of the Ingu that explained everything. It was Qawalapeque, the Destroyer of the World. A Dreamer of Great Dreams, but the guardian of the gates of Hell itself. Though they might think they can control his powers, he is a god, and they are all fools. If she were to allow them to continue their fool's mission, the Ancient God would shake off the mountains and crush them all. And the rest of humanity, too.

Lara asked if all of the Ingu believed as he and seer did--that the foreigners were there to awaken Qawalapeque. When he assured her they all did, pointing out as proof their devotion to their fire ceremony and their rapt attentiveness to her presence, she was moved to ask about Kini. Who was he? Kini, Bean told her, was an outsider in spirit who was wearing a familiar-looking skin. He was a great Ingu warrior who betrayed the Ingu on his first sight of the strangers from the North. He ran away with them, learned their language, and swore allegiance to their sinister cause. Lara was surprised to learn that this crisis had been building for years. She felt compelled to confront Kini. She went to where he was bound and gagged and being led along on a rope.

She ungagged him and asked: "Why don't _you_ believe?"

He replied: "I am not insane."

And that had been enough to convince her to return the gag to his mouth. There had been something about his answer that deeply unsettled her. Less his words than his attitude. His underlying cynicism. It cast doubts into her mind about her newly kindled sense of faith. In the course of a split-second, she considered both the philosophical and the pragmatic ramifications of her new-found Cause. Even if the Ingu religion were false, she swiftly concluded, the mission of the men in black was clearly an atrocity against a noble people, headed by man who had betrayed and twice attempted to murder her. Even if she were to escape these mountains only to find her sense of consecration to be as fleeting as the wind, this mission that Bean was sending her on--the act of it--will undisputably have been just and right.

By the time she returned to Bean, the sun's first light was sparkling through the trees' dewy fronds. She couldn't believe it was already dawn. Contemplation had stolen her sense of time. As she returned to Bean's side, she noticed the line of villagers, before her and behind, as though for the first time. The seer was leading his people at a dirge-like pace, and they flowed behind him like gentle lambs. The seer was farthest front, so she couldn't see his face; but she could tell his eyes were on the sky above, dazzling themselves amidst the treescape, rather than on the trail before them. She was almost curious enough to catch up and look into his face, to try to guess his mystical thoughts. But then she noticed Bean was strapped with an Old-West-styled two-holstered pistol belt and two authentic six-guns. They were so slight against his round, pudgy belly, and so neatly concealed beneath his leather vest, that she hadn't noticed them before. Once she saw them, her eyes widened.

"Eighty-Eight Thunderers?" she exclaimed.

Bean chuckled at the novelty of her excitement.

"Where did you get these, a museum?" she asked.

"No," Bean said. "They were my grandfather's. He was a lawman."

"They're in excellent condition from the look of them," Lara said. "May I?"

She removed one from its holster almost before he could express his reluctant approval. She lifted it and let the dawn light sparkle across its ancient, faded finish. She followed the sites with her eyes, down the handle. She fingered the trigger well, and looked down the barrel. She noticed the rounds were unusual. They must have been hand-loaded. They weren't commercial cartridges.

Bean took the weapon from her and re-holstered it.

"You don't strike me as the gun-slinging type, Bean," Lara said.

"I'm not," Bean replied. "But these are special pistols. They're blessed. They can't do evil. I won't touch any other weapon in world. Wouldn't have brought these if I didn't think they'd be absolutely necessary. I wish like hell they hadn't been, but..."

"It was you, then," said Lara. "You're the one they were talking about. They said two of their soldiers were killed."

"Men aren't evil," said Bean. "Never are. But sometimes they are willing to _do_ evil."

"I saw one of them kill a little boy."

That caught Bean's attention.

"It was a little Ingu boy," Lara explained. "I wanted to rip his head from shoulders and--"

Bean interrupted: "You can't let them make you hate, Lara."

Lara sighed angrily. "But--?"

"This is important," Bean said. "I'm glad it came up. Hell, this may be the most important thing of all."

"What are you talking about?" Lara asked. "You've asked me to fight them. You told me--"

"I know what I told you," Bean said. "But now you've got to listen to me. There isn't much time, and you've got to understand this."

"I'm listening."

"The gods have a way of using evil to get done the things that gotta be done."

"'Using evil'?" Lara gasped. The words were sour in her mouth. She didn't like where this was going at all.

"That's the reason you've got bad people out there," Bean said. "They're not evil. They're tools. And they got no choice. But you're good. You've got a choice. If you turn to evil... You become worse than they could ever be. After that, whatever you're fighting for, you'll destroy. Guaranteed. Fight them; but don't become them."

"Bean, surely--"

"Promise me."

He was more serious than she had yet seen him.

"I promise."

"Good," Bean said, stopping suddenly and announcing: "Because we're here."

Lara hadn't noticed how the woods had been steadily opening up around them. They, seemingly suddenly, were standing well in the periphery of a large, breezy clearing. The other villagers were catching up, slowly milling and massing every way but west. West was where the seer stood, gazing awfully. She heard him chanting quietly to himself. He murmured. He moaned. She couldn't tell if he was feeling ecstasy or pain. He was gazing west.

"There it is," Bean said.

West across the clearing, there was a face of rock which wasn't shrouded by the thicket of trees and brush that otherwise consumed the periphery of the clearing. The steep thirty-foot ridges that bordered the valley around them ran parallel in the north and south until they converged in the west--at the foot of Qawalapeque's mountain. Carved into the steep, thirty-foot incline was a chiseled face. A huge ceremonial mark. It was sculpted in a style that might have been borrowed from the Incas or Aztecs. The face, the section of wall upon which it had been carved, was clearly a closed twenty-foot door.

"That's a _gate_?" Lara asked, stepping forward.

"It's the passage I was telling you about," Bean said.

"But it's closed!" she protested.

"You'll have to open it," Bean said.

"How do I do that?" she asked.

"You'll have to figure that part out yourself," he replied.

"Has it occurred to you that it might not even _be_ a door?"

"No."

"I don't know about this," Lara said, hesitating.

"That door leads to a path along an underground river," Bean assured her. "It's just like I told you. You just go where the water goes. Just keep on going down."

"You didn't tell me _this_," Lara said.

"I know what you're thinking," Bean said. "'This old man is crazy.'"

"With a few extra words," she admitted with a smirk.

"You don't have to do this," Bean said. "You can go back to your normal life."

"Bean, that's a _wall_," Lara said. "Surely there's another way to the sea."

"Maybe," Bean replied. "But not for you. Your way is through there."

"This is madness."

"I know it," Bean said. "But I have faith in you. They all have faith in you."

And Lara saw how the whole crowd, and now even the seer, had turned to face her. It was clear in their expressions exactly what they wanted. Exactly what they hoped. _Why was she hesitating?_ they seemed to ask. She knew in her heart what she need to do. If she did anything less, their disappointment in her would murder her soul.

A little girl in the crowd was pressed forward by her mother. As the little girl approached, Bean said: "Have faith in yourself." The little girl was carrying a soldier's black canvas knapsack. She meekly offered it up to Lara. It had a sewn-in set of hieroglyphs that Lara couldn't decipher. The sack was stocked and heavy. The little girl was straining herself holding it above her head. Lara finally accepted it, and the little girl chanted some words she apparently had memorized. Lara smiled. It was very charming.

Bean said, "She says it came from a bad man, but she sewed that mark on it to take the evil away."

The little girl soon returned to her mother's arms, where she glared back at Lara with a staunchness that seemed strangely out of place in a child's eyes. Instead of being simply and innocently gratified that Lara had appreciated her gift, what she seemed to be feeling was pride in herself. She stuck out her little chest and held her muddy head high, as if having just been greatly honored. Her mother hugged her tightly to her waist and also gazed at Lara--also with that same grim satisfaction.

Lara opened the sack. It contained what was probably its original military issue: a flashlight, a short length of rope, a compass, and a hunting knife. Also inside was their Idol: The device Rainy had sacrificed himself to steal from the men in black.

"Bean," she said, surprised.

She tried to remove the Idol and offer it back to them, but Bean stopped her hand, gently.

"No," Bean said. "You came with it. You leave with it. Besides, you'll need more than your word to convince that world out there. Believe it or not, that little device has got enough secrets in it to blow this whole case wide open. You just get it to the right people. You'll know who."

"Alright," Lara said, relenting at last. "I'll try."

She put on the backpack and trotted to the foot of the gateway.

She let her eyes explore the wall.

It was smooth. She couldn't imagine this thing being a door. Not a door that could open and then shut again. Its incline leaned back so sharply that, were it to fall out of its frame, nothing, she imagined, short of a modern hydraulic crane, could possibly lift it back into its place again. Her curiosity alone about how the door was engineered was enough to inspire her efforts. She wanted to see it in action. But there was nothing on the ground to suggest a triggering mechanism of any kind. Still, any part of this so-called gate could be the hidden trigger that would open the door, including the raised markings on the door itself.

She eventually concluded that her best option would be to scale the door face and search the top of the ridge for clues. The door was sloped just enough to make it possible for her (though virtually no one else) to ascend--with a running start. As she moved into position, she could hear the Ingu beginning to murmur nervously. They must have thought she was going to _ram_ the wall. Seconds later, they held their breath as she dashed to the foot of the door and ran up its face. The climb was incredible. Her throbbing legs never slowed for an instant: If they had, she would have spilled back down the hill in a humiliated heap. Everyone exhaled their collectively bated breath and sighed a loud, satisfied gasp as she triumphantly assumed the top of the thirty-foot ridge, posing with her hands on her hips.

By now the crowd had moved closer to the door, gathering below it, giving Lara a gratifying audience.

Lara considered her next move.

The top of the door didn't offer many more possibilities than the ground had. There was a large boulder there, standing as high as Lara's thigh; and a vast stretch of ground leading west, between the mountains. Nothing seemed promising. But then, suddenly, in her search for door triggers, and in her erstwhile admiration of her view from so high, Lara realized something else altogether. Something terrible. The others must have seen it in her face, because she saw them bristling even as she thought about it. The entire clearing was enclosed. The only passage out was far to the east; and the rest of the valley was sealed by ridges and insulated on all sides by a healthy woodline. With all of the villagers gathered at this western ridge wall, if there were to be an ambush _now_--

--Why hadn't she thought about this before?

She was thinking she should warn the villagers, but instead she froze.

She heard something coming. Rhythmic. Constant. Relentless.

An engine.

She span. In an instant, she saw and reacted to something fast and black, coming straight for her. She leaped onto the large boulder and then leaped again, tackling the rider from the oncoming motorcycle. She ripped him cleanly from his bike, tucking his head and neck into her chest and rolling smoothly onto the ground, protecting him from harm. His motorcycle spilled over the top of the door-face and hit the clearing floor with a thud, its engine choking and dying. The natives gasped at the riderless motorcycle. They approached and kicked at it curiously, finding some novelty in the miracle that it had survived the fall intact.

Meanwhile, Lara rolled over and released her captive, holding his head in her hands. She gazed into his face and joyously exclaimed: "Rainy!"

Had it not been for Lara, he would have jumped the thirty-foot ridge, and would have probably been killed. As it was, though he was alive, he was obviously very dazed and puzzled. He couldn't articulate his thoughts. But the words he wanted to say to Lara must already have been loose in his head: They were coming out mechanically.

"Lara. Lara. Lara. It's a trap. A trap. Lara. A trap."

That was confirmation enough.

Lara stood and turned to face the crowd. She was about to cry out to them when another, louder, sound interrupted her.

It came from seemingly nowhere, silent until just that instant. From the west, from behind her, from beyond the horizon, a helicopter emerged and hovered. It was glaring down on the crowd, its forward window glass glinting with the eastern dawn like angry eyes. Leveling. Aiming...

"Shit--" Lara cursed feverishly, realizing what sitting ducks she and Rainy were on the top of the ridge with no cover anywhere around. She yanked Rainy's collar swiftly and sent him on his way over the gateway face--where he tumbled down to safety.

Suddenly the bullets came, striking everything around her and kicking up a thick, unbreathable, cloud of dust. She stumbled instead of leaped toward the edge. She fell blindly against the thigh-high rock and tried to push herself clear--but she toppled to the ground instead. The rock had _failed_. For a split second Lara imagined her senses had gone mad--lost to the dust and disorientation. The huge and seemingly unmovable boulder had fallen _sideways_. But then, even as she dodged bullets by log-rolling her way over the ridge, she realized she had seen a thick and ancient rope spooling from bottom of the false boulder through a giant pulley system. It was the trigger she had been looking for! But this was hardly the circumstances under which she had hoped to find it--tumbling down the gateway face itself, chased by aerial guns. And the door was _crumbling_, not opening, beneath her. It was splintering into a twelve-chunk, 200-ton, avalanche that threatened to bury her alive.

Realizing she had only instants to act before she was crushed in the rubble, Lara threw out her hands and shot into a hand spring, skipping over a gap between falling segments. The entire slope fell apart in two seconds; but, with two more hand springs and a soaring mid-air somersault, she managed to clear the wreckage before it could come fully apart beneath her. Her somersault landed her soundly upon her feet, and she turned to face the awestruck crowd.

"Run!" Lara cried out, as the huge door fully crashed down behind her--revealing an equally huge passage beneath the mountain that ran as far back as the eye could see. As the dust cleared, the natives stood dumbfounded, some blinking incredulously. Electrically, the pause was shattered by new gunfire.

Women and children screamed. The crowd broke into chaos. The gunshots were coming from all directions, from all around the clearing, criss-crossing through the thick of the crowd, dropping villagers six, seven, eight at a time. The helicopter was one part of the menace, but it was the MP5 machineguns of the shrewdly placed foot soldiers that were doing the most killing. The soldiers were leaping from their hiding places and were mercilessly advancing--closing in on all sides.

"This way!" Lara cried out, grabbing the stunned Rainy, again by the collar, and lunging for the cover of the newly opened gateway. "Come on!"

But when Lara and Rainy arrived in the relative safety of the passage, they realized they were alone. None of the others had followed--even though the slaughter outside remained in full effect. She screamed for them. She waved at them. But they stood in their places, or they charged at the guns, or they just fell--many, many, at a time. How many people were dying each minute? Hundreds? A thousand? More? Lara was watching genocide happening. She was watching an entire culture being erased from the face of the Earth. It was surreal. Like watching war footage, safely, from the other side of her television set. She was safe, but it was a poisoned sort of "safe". A coward's "safe". Not a single one of the villagers were following her!

"What's going on!" she hissed, furious and frustrated. Impulsively, she launched herself back out of the cavern and back into the fray. Rainy screamed at her to stop. He pleaded with her from his hiding place behind the wall. But Lara dashed into the crowd anyway; watching its men, women, and children scrambling in every direction--except the one that would have led them to safety.

Lara could see now, once outside of the cavern, how the native men, with their stolen guns, were charging the men in black--who steadily, cruelly, advanced upon them. She saw how the young men charged with spears; how the women charged with sticks; how even the children either charged alongside the adults or simply stood still there mutely, waiting for the end. Lara was in fury. She screamed at the crowd, pointed at the cave. They didn't understand. They ignored her. Or they stared at her with a stare so unearthly it made her think they were more terrified for her than for themselves.

She saw where Bean stood, in a part of the crowd that had thinned from casualties. He had his pistols out, and was firing at the enemy. He was standing bravely, though the others had fallen. He stood and battled with no seeming intent other than to go down in the end as as costly a victory for his enemy as possible. She dashed toward him and grabbed him by the lapels of his vest, shaking him.

"Tell them, the cave!" she shrieked. "Tell them! Tell them!"

Bean shook his head and shoved her away.

"Go!" he screamed. "We're doing it for you! _Go!_"

"No!" she shouted back. "What are you talking about?"

He stopped shooting, holstered his guns, and turned at her.

"It's all for nothing if you don't go!" He grabbed her shoulders, pushing her back toward the cavern. "Get in there! Go! Go!"

Suddenly the force of his push evaporated. He fell forward, and Lara caught him. She dragged him back toward the safety of the cave, his heavy boots digging troughs in the dirt behind them.

"Grampa!" cried out Rainy, coming out only as Lara entered with Bean. "Grampa, no!"

Lara dragged him into the cave and sat him upright against the wall. Outside, she could hear the soldiers mercilessly tightening their Mongol Circle for once last push.

"Grampa!" screamed Rainy, more in seeming rage than grief. "Goddamnit! Grampa..!"

Bean's eyes were losing their focus. Lara saw the gaping wound in his back. He had lost massive amounts of blood. But, to the degree to which he had the strength to do so, he smiled at his grandson.

"Don't...be...sad...Rainy Clear-sky," said Bean. "Go with the..."

He looked to Lara, without the strength to say the name he wanted to bestow upon her.

"Bean," said Lara, tenderly.

What little focus he had left, he spent gazing upon Lara Croft.

"Take them," he barely said.

"I don't understand," Lara replied, tearing up.

"They're blessed," he said.

And he slipped away.

"No!" cried Rainy, "no!"

Lara stared into the dead man's face, incredulous that so much had happened so quickly. She wiped the tears from her eyes and listened to the gunshots outside. She felt the changes in her life wafting through her, sweeping her up and away from the little girl who had arrived in a crashing airplane. It felt like a gesture of closure when she gently pulled Bean's eyes closed. Closure on her own past. And a tacit acknowledgment of what she knew was to come. If there was to be grief, it would have to come later.

"Oh, God!" sobbed Rainy, pounding his fists into the stone. "Why? Why?"

While Rainy sobbed, Lara looked down the length of the cavern, deep into the earth. It was smooth-floored; perhaps man-made, or at least man-augmented. It was passable. But they'd have to move fast. She needed Rainy, though. First of all, she needed him to stop crying.

Unexpectedly, he suddenly did.

"You want something to cry about?"

Lara span.

It was Henrick. He was at the entry to the cavern. He was pointing his MP5 at them. He was going to say--

"don't move or I'll"

--but he only got as far as "don't moo--" before Lara drew one of Bean's pistols; and, like a striking viper, expertly put three holes through his chest in one-half of a second--two rounds straight through his heart. He dropped dead instantly. Rainy stared at the dead soldier, sobering.

"Go out there and get that motorcycle, Rainy," Lara commanded.

"What?" he protested.

"I'll cover you."

* * *

"_Henrick!_" Cavanaugh's voice shouted in the colonel's radio, "_Henrick!_"

"_He's down, sir,_" transmitted Murphy's voice.

"Shit," Spaulding hissed, "where?"

"_The cave_," exclaimed Doc.

The colonel, a lieutenant named Taylor, and Kini, sat in the control base, well behind the woodline. After ducking out of the blood bath, Kini had found his way here--and had cut his bonds from his hands and had removed the gag from his mouth. But he, understandably, had little to say while they cut his people into ribbons before his eyes. The colonel sensed his obvious and completely understandable discomfort, but they had already come to an understanding about this. Kini had expressed his new loyalties, and had forsworn his older ones. This was tragic, but inevitable. Kini understood.

But the battle in the clearing was not going well. The colonel had intended that there be a minimum of blood on all sides. The plan was to enter the fray and capture their objectives in seconds, not slay their opposition outright. Their gun positions were being forced to mow them down. They were charging like Kamikaze, despite the colonel's soldiers' obvious brutal efficiency. They were displaying the very fanatical behavior that the colonel had most feared--which had been the reason for his desire to keep their engagement short--but he hadn't predicted the trouble they would have locating Lara Croft and the ILC. The helicopter had reported positively engaging her with machinegun fire, and the others had reported seeing her body tumbling through the falling rubble when the ridge had collapsed beneath the helicopter's assault. Yet, there was no sign of a body; and the first man of the recon team they had sent in to investigate had not only come up empty, he had come up dead.

It was not looking good for the Operations Force.

"If she's in that cave and she's armed, it's going to be hell digging her out!" Lieutenant Taylor moaned.

No one disagreed.

"I want eyes on her right now," the colonel said. "There's no time to secure the AO. Murphy, your team is the only one that's close enough."

"_Yes, sir_," Murphy's radio voice sighed. The colonel then heard him say: "_Doc, Cavanaugh, Tripp; let's go get us some eyes_."

"_Yes, sir_," he heard Cavanaugh reply, obviously reluctantly.

"And Murphy," said Colonel Spaulding. "Eyes only. Don't engage unless you have to. You'll have reinforcements in a matter of minutes. Don't blow it."

"_Yes, sir_."

"This shit's enough to throw your belief in providence, isn't it Taylor?" sighed the colonel.

"Rhode Island, sir?" the soldier chided.

"Cute..."

Minutes later, a transmission came, the voice resounding urgently: "_Colonel!_"

Around the same time, the sounds of gunfire began to taper off, and then to stop altogether.

The colonel tentatively replied.

"What is it, Bailey?"

"_You'd...better...get up here, sir..._"

"Is the area secure, Captain?"

"_Not...exactly, but..._"

"But what?"

"_I...just think you should be up here_."

"Well, goddamnit!"

Taylor and the colonel stomped their way to the clearing, Kini trailing them at a much less urgent pace. Spaulding, ruthlessly, angrily, knocked branches and leaves out of his face as he plowed through, cursing and grunting and spitting, until he came into the open clearing. When he saw what was there, however, he slowed down. He became quiet.

He stared. Incredulously.

Bodies were everywhere. Men, women, children; all indiscriminately strewn about the clearing. They were scattered like children's toys in an untidy room. The colonel stepped over them with barely a glance. That wasn't what he found unbelievable.

His soldiers had come completely out of hiding, all thirteen of them: the original sixteen minus the three the natives had managed to kill in the battle. They stood passively, weapons down at their sides. It was as though there were no threat at all. But they were all staring at the entrance to the cave. It was blocked by the forty or fifty surviving villagers. The clustered fanatics stood, hand-in-hand, side-by-side, row after row, in the twenty-foot mouth of the cave. They were a living barricade. His soldiers watched Spaulding closely for queues about how they should be reacting to this gentle counter-offensive. These women and children. These harmless lambs who had ducked out of the fight and had never threatened a one of them.

Kini walked slowly behind the colonel, taking a place at his side. He stared at the villagers, his mouth open, his head slowly turning side to side. The native turn-coat's eyes were wide and almost sympathetic. But, clearly, what he was feeling wasn't sympathy. It was horror. Mounting, paralyzing horror.

"What's the problem, Captain Bailey?" asked the Colonel.

"We thought the non-combatants had all run away," said the captain. "But when the fighting started dying down and I tried to send in a team to back up First Squad, we found _them_ blocking the way."

"So what?" protested the colonel, coolly. "Get them _out_ of the way."

"I don't think you understand, sir," said the Captain. He then called out: "Wallis! Show him."

Lieutenant Wallis sent Sydwinsky, one of his soldiers, forward to the obstruction. The villagers stood unimpressed with either him or his gun. He shoved a woman who simply stood her ground. He tried striking her with his weapon's barrel, but she simply took the blow passively--and stood her ground.

"Oh, please, goddamnit!" the colonel hissed, marching forward. "Kini!"

Kini approached with him.

The colonel confronted the closest villager, a young woman. He yelled: "Get the hell out of the way!" as though his increased volume might increase her English comprehension. When she didn't respond, he said, "Kini, tell her!"

Kini's phrasing of the colonel's terse command seemed wordier in Ingu. Kini said it more softly. In his voice, he seemed to plead. The colonel didn't approve of the liberal translation, but he didn't protest. In any case, it didn't seem to matter whether the colonel said it or Kini said it, the woman simply stared back at them, blank faced.

The colonel raised his MP5 and placed its barrel on her head.

"Oh yeah?" he growled at her.

Her expression didn't change, but the colonel's did. His bravado dissolved.

He moved the weapon to another villager's head, but kept staring into the first woman's eyes.

She glanced to her companion, another woman, who was staring at the colonel. Neither had slipped from their blank, unruffled composure. Soon both were staring blankly at the colonel, passively. Calmly.

"Come on!" demanded the colonel, "I'll do it! I'll do it! Kini, tell them I'll do it!"

He translated, as liberally and as pleadingly as before, but it made no difference.

He glanced around to all of them, and found all their faces impassive. Blank. But staring directly into his eyes.

The colonel breathed deep--once, twice, three times--and then fired.

The native fell to the dirt in the mouth of the cave, quivered twice, and laid still. The two nearest her joined hands with each other to close the gap. They all returned their impassive faces to the colonel.

The colonel backed away--practically stumbling back. He was beyond incredulity. His knees were going weak with horror. He backed into Kini, pressing into his chest. He pushed the husky native back with him until he was far enough away for the terror to subside. He looked into Kini's face and asked--he pleaded--"What can I do?"

Kini raised his head, jutted his chin, hardened his face. He could say nothing.

The colonel could see what Kini was refusing to say. It was simply too late.

The colonel arrayed a firing squad, his guts tightening.

He ordered them to fire, and he promptly threw up.


	11. Chapter Ten: The Chase

**INSTRUMENTAL: "_Desert Chase_."**

**--John Williams **

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack:

_Raiders of the Lost Ark_.)

**CHAPTER TEN:** **"**The Chase.**"**

Murphy, Doc, Cavanaugh, and Tripp were in the woodline, just south of the newly opened cave. They were reconning the place where Lara Croft had reportedly disappeared.

"_And Murphy_," said the colonel's voice, "_Eye's only. Don't engage unless you have too. You'll have reinforcements in a matter of minutes. Don't blow it_."

"Yes, sir," replied Murphy--but his dunderheaded soldier, Tripp, was already aiming a shot. "What the hell are you doing?"

Murphy tried to slap down Tripp's barrel, but all he managed to do was deflect him off-target. Tripp's three-round burst ricocheted uselessly across the mouth of the cave, missing its target by a wide margin.

"I had a clear shot!" Tripp whined.

Rainy Hedgebrook had been skulking in the open, among the fallen boulders. Before Tripp had fired his dunderheaded potshots, he had had no idea he was being watched; but now he was safely behind the rocks.

"You idiot!" Murphy snarled, as a barrage of incoming fire sent the four scuttling behind boulders themselves. The shots had come from the mouth of the cave. Clearly, Lady Croft had found herself a toy.

"Goddamnit!" barked Murphy. "Tripp, Doc--return fire!"

The two soldiers timed themselves, bouncing--saying, "one, two, three--!"--before leaping up and firing. Normally, it was a highly effective tactic, but not this time. They were back down an instant later, gritting their teeth while lead spattered on the rocks above their head and showered them with sparks.

Doc opened his eyes, shook his head, and sighed loudly: "Man, she's _good_..."

"You fucking idiot, Tripp!" Murphy groaned.

"Man," protested Tripp, "but--"

And suddenly they heard a motorcycle engine roaring to life.

Murphy sat up straight, his eyes going wide.

"_That's_ what I was trying to tell you!" Tripp said.

First Squad looked over their rocky cover. There was no sign of Croft or Rainy, but the engine sound was fading with distance. And was becoming an echo.

They were riding it _in_ to the cave.

* * *

High over the battlefield, hovering in the helicopter, Major Leipig sat with his briefcase open on his lap, his laptop computer whirring inside. He was staring at its screen, hoping for a pleasant surprise. He didn't get one. He fed the same data into another program in the hopes of a second opinion. While waiting, he glanced at the Interlocutor device itself, strapped to the helicopter's inner hull. Leipig's program flashed at him when it was done processing, and he shook his head sadly. The second program's projections were no more encouraging than the first's.

"Darn it," he cursed, adding loudly into the pickup of his flight helmet, "Sergeant Patterson, could you patch me into the tactical frequency?"

Sergeant Patterson was the flight chief. While Chief Warrant Officer Moriguchi was busy piloting, Patterson was ensuring the noisy Chinook wasn't shaking itself apart. He also manned the radio.

"Sure thing," Patterson said, adjusting a knob on the cockpit's very complex-looking radio.

The helicopter radio was but one among many secret technologies that Leipig had never seen before, despite his Top Secret clearance and his day job as an NSA Special Intelligence Advisor. It was also one the very few things the Operations Force regulars were willing to explain to him. It was a satellite radio. It had direct links to the Pentagon, Fort Bragg, and wherever the Project had contacts--which meant it was part of a very large network, indeed. A request for a mere 1000-meter radio call to the Colonel on the ground seemed almost an insult to its cutting-edge microcircuitry.

"_Spaulding_," the colonel's voice said a moment later.

"Colonel," reported Leipig, re-reading his computer's ugly data, "there may be a problem."

* * *

Lara gunned the bike, seemingly blindly, straight down the throat of the cave--and Rainy didn't like it one bit. It was a large and high-ceilinged cave, with a smooth(-ish) floor, but it was a _cave_. Not a mountain path. Not a paved road. A _cave_. And it was getting blacker and blacker. Lara was leaving the light of day behind, and--as Rainy so well knew--these tactical motorcycles had no headlights to replace it with. Rainy was really wishing he'd thought twice before hoping on. A little pre-suicide consultation had clearly been in order.

"Where the hell are we going?" he screamed into Lara's ear.

"Under the mountain," she yelled back.

"Under it?" Rainy demanded--now knowing _for sure _the woman was deluded. "Are you fucking crazy? There's no _under_ it!"

But Rainy was less worried about their destination than their pace. The passage was now entirely black. Rainy couldn't even see the back of Lara's neck--an inch away from his face!

"Slow the fuck down!"

"Do you have to use such _language_?" Lara cried back. "It's unbecoming for a child."

"I can't see a thing! Can you?"

"I can see fine."

"How the hell can you see in the dark?"

"This isn't dark," Lara said--and she seemed to mean it. She even seemed to think it sounded reasonable when she added, "Bean said--"

But Rainy interrupted, understanding _everything_ now.

"_Bean_?" cried Rainy, "that cracked old geezer? Jesus, god! We are _so_ fucking dead! There's no way through here, you dumb bitch!"

Rainy was expecting another protest--or at least a reply--but Lara was suddenly quiet.

She slammed on the breaks, and the bike skidded to a stop.

It may have been exactly what he had wanted, but Rainy somehow knew that it wasn't at all a good thing.

* * *

Murphy carried Cavanaugh while Tripp rode solo. Their two motorcycles were met at the cave entrance by Doc, whose recon had revealed that the Lady Croft's engines were still gunning in the cavern--and fading with distance. Murphy had raced straight over, with bikes commandeered from Fourth Squad's empty patrol base.

"You can't be thinking..." said Doc, eyeing their rides.

"Can I call it in _now_?" asked Cavanaugh.

Calling in was the proper thing to do, but Murphy knew the colonel would want them to wait for reinforcements--and he would consider it yet another failure on Murphy's already shoddy record. He had to motivate First Squad to fix this one on their own, even if Cavanaugh's patience was wearing thin, and Doc clearly thought he was nuts. Murphy didn't know how he would motivate them. But then their morale received an unexpected boost from a dead body laying in the mouth of the cave, rudely, in a pool of its own blood.

"Henrick," said Tripp.

"Dead," said Doc.

Murphy could see the thirst for vengeance surging in them, so he quickly capitalized on it.

"Switch to starlight," Murphy ordered. "We're going in. We're gonna get this bitch."

It worked--at least on Doc and Tripp. They were seething. But Cavanaugh was leering at him as though a horn had sprouted from his forehead.

"Fuck orders!" Murphy snapped. "We're not letting her get away. Get out your goddamned NODs."

Doc and Tripp were quickly with the program, digging into their packs and donning their equipment. Cavanaugh took another few seconds, but even he joined in eventually. In seconds, all four soldiers had Night Observation Devises strapped on their heads and were ready to go.

"This is insane," said Doc, climbing onto the back of Tripp's ride.

"Don't get all fruity on me back there, Doc," said Tripp, noting how Doc's derriere was taking up most of the seat, leaving him practically sitting on the big man's lap. "I don't want to come back State-side all sweet, holding hands with your stanky black ass."

"Yeah, fuck you, Tripp," growled Doc, though clearly just psyching himself up. He locked and loaded a fresh magazine. "You just keep this fucking thing on its goddamned wheels and we'll be alright."

"We'll be alright," whispered Tripp.

"Get ready," Murphy said, reaching down between his legs and flipping a switch beneath the motorcycle's chassis. Tripp did the same, and suddenly the space before them was flooded with a blanket of infrared light that only they could see.

"We should call this in…" insisted Cavanaugh.

"Enough!" Murphy said. "I heard you. Noted. Let's go."

The pursuit team vanished into the dark.

* * *

"What the fuck--?"

Lara had dismounted, leaving Rainy supporting the bike's weight. And she started undressing herself--or so it sounded.

"Jesus God, what the hell are you doing?" Rainy asked, blinking his eyes in the pitch black.

"Put this on," Lara said, handing him something clunky and heavy.

"What is it?" he asked, though he recognized it the moment it was in hand. It was the soldier's backpack she had been wearing. He noticed how loose it's shoulder straps were. Too loose even for a grown woman. He couldn't wear it this way. But before he could adjust it, she was man-handling him, threading his arms through the straps--but with the pack-part in the wrong place!

"Put it on," she insisted, fighting him. "Yes, _backwards!_"

* * *

Murphy had the sinking feeling he was getting in over his head.

The tunnel was clearly man-made. It was too smooth and too straight to be natural. It got him thinking about aspects of this Project that soldiers at his level weren't supposed to know--but which he did. It wasn't that he imagined Project personnel might have created this passage, but once one knew a little about what was going on behind the scenes, strange things like this take on frightening implications. He was genuinely afraid of what he might see next if he continued down this tunnel. It was almost enough to turn him back. But David Croft's grand-daughter was using Project-issued NODs, a Project-issued MP5, and a Project-issued motorcycle against them. There was no way he was going to allow the little brat to outdo him and his men on their own equipment. Especially when Adolf Spaulding himself was watching. He would open the throttle 100-percent, and either he would get her or the treacherous cavern would get him.

Either way, Murphy finally had no choice but to call it in.

"Colonel Spaulding, this is First Squad," shouted Murphy into his radio pickup.

"_Go ahead, First_," replied the colonel.

"The target has detected us, and we are about to engage," Murphy said.

"_Don't be stupid! Look, Murphy, Leipig says that the deeper you chase her into that_--"

But Murphy wasn't listening. He interrupted, "What was that, sir? Getting interference!"

And he shut down the tactical net. He knew his men had heard what he had just done; but, apart from the over-cautious Cavanaugh, he doubted any of them cared. None would dare call the colonel behind his back. When reinforcements arrived, Croft would already be dead, and the device and Rainy secure in First Squad's hands. Was he playing just exactly the mad game that Cavanaugh seemed to think he was? Yes. And it was, indeed, a mad and dirty game sometimes. But the stakes were higher than Cavanaugh or any of his men could know. And it was worth the risk. It was worth their lives.

Even his own.

"Follow me!" Murphy shouted--and he cranked the gas full-open.

* * *

"Why?" demanded Rainy, though helpless but to comply.

She was easing herself onto the saddle behind him, and tugging at the backpack's shoulder straps. It didn't make any sense at all until the bulky bag slid tightly up against his chest, and he realized she was back-to-back with him. Shoulder-to-shoulder. Strapped in.

"Ride!" Lara exclaimed.

And he could suddenly hear the sounds of the pursuing motorcycles--which Lara had apparently heard coming fully thirty seconds before, even over their own roaring engine. The soldiers' machineguns began blazing a second after.

"Go!" she shouted. "Go! Go!"

And Rainy gunned the throttle while she--strapped to his back--used her free hands, and her MP5, to shoot back.

* * *

"There she is!" Murphy shouted. "Fire! Fire!"

Doc fired over Tripp's shoulder, and Cavanaugh, suddenly, over Murphy's own. Murphy kept thinking that the double-riding girl and boy would tumble any second, but they stayed upright. And he heard the whiz of near-misses zipping past his own head.

"What the..?" murmured Murphy, only then seeing how Lara Croft was seated backwards on the motorcycle. Somehow, she was returning fire. And while none of Doc's or Cav's rounds seemed to get even remotely close, he could see the infrared heat of Croft's shots zeroing in, ever more accurately.

"Come on, come on!" screamed Murphy, intensely frustrated. "Goddamnit! You can't hit shit!"

* * *

Rainy felt the stream of bullets searching for him in the dark. He tried his best to keep the throttle level and his steering smooth, and he tried to go fast, but the percussion of Lara's gunfire was addling his brain. He kept lurching and breaking. He was blind, for pity's sake! And yet Lara still wanted more.

"Can't this thing go faster?" she demanded.

"_It_ can!" Rainy shouted.

Rainy felt the winds of bullets missing them by inches.

"Open it up! Twist it all the way!"

"I can't see! We'll run into a wall!"

"You aren't steering," Lara suddenly revealed. "_I_ am."

And it was true; Rainy just hadn't realized it yet. She had the bike entirely under her control. At strategic moments, was she leaning hard, left and right, making the bike dodge streams of bullets just as the soldiers fired them. And she was somehow not hitting the walls! When Rainy realized this, when he realized he could trust her, a sense of liberation washed over him. He opened the throttle more and more. It was as though the bike were accelerating by itself. It wasn't long before Lara and Rainy had completely outrun their pursuers, and the sounds of gunshots had faded behind them.

Lara stopped firing and stopped swerving. She relaxed.

But Rainy didn't. His confidence in himself and in his machine was still soaring. His pleasure at their escape felt so intoxicating that he wanted to press it further. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and them as he possibly could. He continued twisting open the throttle until he had unleashed every last bit of horse-power his machine had left.

Lara didn't seem to care at first--but then her back went stiff against his.

"Rainy?" Lara said.

"What?" Rainy replied, fiercely.

"Stop!"

"No, no!" protested Rainy, "they're still back there!"

"No!" Lara demanded. "Don't you see that?"

"See what?"

A moment later, a thin sliver of sunlight appeared beyond the horizon before him--or at least what seemed bright enough to be sunlight. He only dimly realized how unnaturally blue the light was, and how oddly textured and strangely unskylike. He was, however, too busy laying his bike down on its side to be contemplative about it: The surprising sight filled him with a terrible intuition that the corridor would stop at a gaping, empty chasm. It was something about the way the blue light was undulating across the ceiling…

Lara slipped free from her shoulder straps the instant he touched the breaks. She slid off of the motorcycle and started rolling. In the end, she would be dizzy but uninjured. Rainy would not be quite so lucky. In his panic, he got his jeans snagged in the machinery and was dragged by the motorcycle, well-past the end of the corridor, well into the light--where he learned his worst fears about this place were _worse _than true.

The dark cave opened up into a massive chamber, hundreds of feet high and long--filled with the echoey roar of rushing water. There was moving light bouncing all around, clearly reflected from some large and tumultuous current that lay beyond and below the drop-off which Rainy's skidding bike had stopped only just short of. Rainy had been frightfully right that the corridor would end at a chasm.

He sighed in relief. Though he remained trapped beneath the capsized motorcycle, he had suffered only minor injuries. Lara trotted into the chamber after him, and he expected her to help him. But she didn't. Instead, as if involuntarily, she looked up.

"Qawalapeque!" she sighed.

Upon the far wall--covering the far wall--was a mural that stood a hundred feet high, towering above everything else in the humongous chamber. It depicted a mountain and a great black giant who was lying across it, through it, and above it. His arms were crossed on his chest as if in a death-like sleep. His great feet were embedded deep in the earth, and there were tiny black figures all around him--about and below the base of the mountain. There was only one figure on the mountain with him, and it was colored white. It stood at the level of the giant's open eyes. He was staring at the tiny white figure as though aware of nothing else.

Lara stared at it for a long time. Too long. Rainy snapped her out of it.

"Lara!" he said--and he had to say it _twice_ before she would answer.

"Yes!" Lara replied, finally asking, "are you okay? Anything broken?"

"Don't think so," Rainy grunted while they both lifted the bike from his legs.

"Lucky," said Lara.

He sidled out from beneath from the machine, noting how uncertain his tennis shoes were on the damp, algaed floor. As Lara ran a finger across the near-frictionless stone surface, Rainy realized how little would have been left of his jeans--or his leg--had the floor been dry.

"Very lucky," she said.

Climbing to his feet, Rainy saw that his chasm wasn't a chasm at all. Though it was a drop-off of a hundred feet or more, it was actually a flight of steep stone stairs. At that moment, Rainy became certain that not only were some of his tribal gods out to get him, some of them were just plain _sadistic_. If his bike had dragged him down _those_...

The stairs were broad and long, carved directly from the stone beneath their feet. Though the chamber itself seemed to have eroded naturally in its unbelievably vast size, its surfaces had clearly been modified by human beings: Its walls chiseled smooth, its slopes chipped into steps. There was even a sacrificial alter at the bottom--and he didn't need to be able to read its complex hieroglyphs to guess what was sacrificed there, nor to whom: The mural high above was connected to the alter by what clearly represented a course of violent water. The etchings depicted a flow from the veins of the god, across the figures about the mountain, and into the violent real-life river whose rapids licked at the edge of the altar's landing.

Another river. One that made the last one seem like a kiddy ride in a water park.

Its origin was somewhere above the southern wall, where, 100 feet up, millions of gallons were spilling in though gaps between the wall and the ceiling--along with the filtered daylight that was creeping across the walls. Clearly, somewhere above that crevice was the valley's huge crater lake--and it seemed like it should run dry at any moment, given these falls' tremendous spillage. There was a narrow tunnel leading west, and the breaks in the ceiling continued all along its course, filling it with a rapids that looked like pure screaming hell. And this one hellish tunnel would appear to be the only way out--a fun fact that only occurred to Rainy a moment _after_ he had heard the sounds of the soldiers' motorcycles finally catching up.

"Can you swim?" Lara asked, dreadfully.

"Not in that!" he gasped, pointing down at the tunnel.

He could hear the soldiers slowing down and dismounting in the outer cavern. They had, unfortunately, seen the edge soon enough to avoid skidding over it. It would have been nice to see what the wrath of this place would look like if it affected the people who actually deserved it. They were seconds away from the chamber itself when Rainy began to panic.

"Oh, God!" he gasped.

"Well," said Lara, readying herself at the side of the corridor's entrance, slapping her last clip into her weapon. "There's only two of them. Maybe four. Get ready to run. And whatever you do, don't--"

Suddenly she noticed:

"Where's my bag?"

Rainy hadn't realized he'd dropped it. Hadn't cared.

"Its got that"--Lara motioned with her hands as though holding a baby--"_doo-hickey_ in it!"

"The ILC?" he exclaimed, somehow connecting the references.

"Come out!" a voice echoed from the dark corridor. It was Murphy.

Lara looked surprised. She obviously hadn't expected them to try _talking_ to her. She cocked her head, curiously.

"We have you outgunned," Murphy continued. "Come on, now. No one wants to see any more blood. Especially yours, Lady Croft. I assure you, this was never more than one big mistake. Your grandfather never intended that you be involved."

"My _grandfather!_" she hissed quietly; not at Murphy, but to herself. She then looked to Rainy, but this was not the time for this discussion. In the silence, Lara seemed to gather rage around herself like a blanket. It seemed to warm her until he expected to hear her insides audibly sizzling.

"Well! Sir!" she snarled at Murphy, "I'm afraid I _am_ involved! And if you want me, you're going to have to come in here after me, aren't you?"

"Don't think we're afraid to do that, Lady Croft," Murphy said. "But think about the boy. What's his best chance? Wouldn't it better if he could go home to his family? We can arrange that."

"Yes," Lara seethed, "'in a box,' wasn't it?"

"Now, Lady..."

"'In pieces'?" she said. "Isn't that what you said?"

"We need the devise," Murphy said. "And we need the boy's help. I was only trying to win his cooperation."

"The way you won Clifford's cooperation?" shrieked back Rainy, intercepting Lara's reply. "Or Sheila's? Or Grandpa's!"

"Enough!" barked Murphy. "This is your only chance, Lady Croft. Come out into the open, and let's negotiate a way out of this."

Rainy looked at Lara. She was clearly thinking about it. She looked at the motorcycle, which was directly in the soldiers' line of fire. That was a suicide plan--and there wouldn't have been anywhere to ride in any case. Then Lara looked at the cold, unforgiving white-water. For Rainy, it was a toss-up between them. He wished there were a third option.

And then, suddenly, he wished there weren't.

"Alright," she said. "We'll give up."

"Lara!" shrieked Rainy, clutching at her vest. "They'll kill me--They're lying! They're lying!"

"Rainy!" she said, peeling off his little hands. "Listen to me. I'll protect you. I promise."

"No, no," he murmured, shaking. "No, no..."

"We're coming out!"

"_No!_"

But she took his shoulder firmly, and he was too horror-stricken to resist. She pushed him before her into the open, giving the entrance a wide girth. With Rainy in front of her, she raised her MP5 in one hand, facing the muzzle unthreateningly skyward, while Rainy continued to whisper "no" over and over again. In the cave, all he saw were their motorcycles. There was no telling where the soldiers themselves were hiding.

"Okay," said Murphy's disembodied voice, "now, lay down your weapon."

"No," said Lara, surprising Rainy as much as it apparently surprised Murphy.

"'No'?" Murphy replied, obviously appalled at her insolence.

"You said 'let's negotiate'," she said. "So, let's negotiate. In _good_ faith. You can see what I have," she shook her gun, "let's see what you have."

There was a long pause.

"We're only doing this for your benefit, Lady Croft," he finally replied. "Your lives don't really mean all that much to us, personally. Don't push us."

"Frankly," Lara replied, "your lives don't mean all that much to me, either. Certainly much less to my little friend, here."

"Come on, Lara! You're cornered!" barked another, much less patient voice.

"Cavanaugh!" she replied. "Good to hear your cheerful voice. That makes two. Anymore of you? How about Rico? Or Henrick?--oh, wait; I forgot! I _killed_ Henrick."

Rainy turned his desperate, pleading eyes up to her, begging her silently: _what are you doing?_ He only then realized that she was taking subtle half-steps backwards every few seconds. It took him a little longer to realize why.

"Fuck you, fucking bitch whore!" shrieked Tripp.

Lara was quietly counting them. She said, "that's three..."

"At ease, Tripp!" snapped Murphy.

"Shut the fuck up, Tripp!"

It was a fourth voice.

"Four," she whispered.

"At ease!" screamed Murphy--clearly losing control of his troops' anger.

And Rainy realized: By making them talk, she now knew where they all were.

"This is bullshit, man!" screeched Tripp.

"Shut up!" shouted Murphy.

"When I say _three_," she whispered to Rainy.

And his heart leaped. Her tone brought him instant clarity. Lara _did _have a plan. He realized what the soldiers couldn't know yet. They thought he and Lara were _cornered_...

"Man, she's right there! Fuck this!" snapped Tripp--and suddenly he was moving!

Lara skipped 'one' and 'two'--

"_Three!_"

She shoved Rainy behind her, hard; and her weapon opened up on the sounds of Tripp's aggression.

Rainy nearly stumbled over the motorcycle on his way back to the stairs, and he nearly lost his balance on their slick surfaces, but he was somehow able to spin himself around on them and drop to his belly--safely behind cover. He inched back up the steps and propped his head and eyes just above the edge to watch Lara fire and move.

Tripp fired only once before he gasped out in pain--_yelped_--and fell backward from sight.

Meanwhile, Lara leaped back to join Rainy on the stairs--pausing only long enough to mule-kick the motorcycle and grab the backpack beneath it. The unwanted bike went screeching by Rainy, missing him by a foot. Lara was still firing at Tripp, and the motorcycle was still toppling down the stairs, when her agile body, not slipping an inch, dropped adroitly down beside him.

"Don't you _ever_ fucking do that!" he shouted.

Lara glanced at him--only for an instant--between rapid, carefully placed shots. She wasn't risking full-auto anymore. She must have been running out of bullets. Not good. And he dreaded the word he already knew she would scream next:

She told him: "Go!"

And he was going to complain--to plea for his life--but he didn't get that far. He was stopped by the sight of something that made him tremble.

With excitement.

"Lara!" he shouted, "look!"

There had been a bundle beneath the bike's back fender that neither of them had noticed before. It had broken free as the bike had tumbled down the steps. Before it had hit the bottom landing, it had automatically inflated--expanding into something bulbous and black and rubber. Rainy nearly wet his pants.

"Boo-ya!" he shouted.

At the bottom of the hundred-foot stairs was an inflatable rubber raft.

* * *

Tripp took the hit through his shoulder like a trooper, though he tossed his MP5 as though it were red hot. It was only when Cavanaugh (a little too quick to his aid) grabbed him that he started kicking and screaming. Thinking Tripp also needed Murphy's help, Cavanaugh shouted:

"Lieutenant!"

But Murphy was enraged and obsessed. After they had heard the motorcycle go down, _bump, bump, bump_--he realized that he had been played for a fool: Croft and Rainy had never been trapped. Those were _steps_ behind them, not a cliff's edge.

And he didn't like being played for a fool.

"Keep firing, Cavanaugh, goddamnit!" Murphy shrieked, sick of his wasting time on Tripp.

Doc and Murphy took turns leaning around the cave mouth to spray their machineguns at Lara Croft--one then the other. They tried trading places quickly, trading places slowly, firing at the same time, one joining the other already firing; but nothing seemed to work. She had their heads ducking back behind cover just as quickly as they could emerge. She left them no time to take aim. They needed more guns. Immensely frustrated, Murphy shrieked:

"_Cavanaugh!_"

Cavanaugh was still attending to Tripp. His wound was bleeding, but it wasn't arterial blood. It wasn't a fatal hit. Cavanaugh was dressing a wound that Tripp could easily be dressing by himself.

"You gonna fucking die, Tripp?" screamed Murphy.

"No," replied Tripp, through teeth clenched from pain.

"Then get both of your fucking asses on-line! Now!"

And Murphy kicked Tripp's abandoned MP5 back to him.

"Listen, Murphy, you--" Cavanaugh attempted to say, but Murphy was louder.

"I want this fucking whore!" he shrieked. "Now, you get back on-line, and you fucking shoot her! If you can hold a fucking gun, you fucking shoot her! She gets away again, I'm gonna fucking shoot _you!_ Do you hear me, you two fucking cock-sucking cowards?"

"Yes, sir," murmured Tripp, darkly inspired. He climbed painfully to a knee, taking his MP5 into his good hand.

But, by then, the chamber was quiet.

Croft had stopped shooting. She had stopped appearing. Doc and Murphy baited her a few more times, but it soon became clear that it was safe to enter the chamber. They walked onto the landing and took several tentative steps toward the edge. Doc and Murphy scanned the room and its incredible mural, but the southern wall and the torrential waterfall feeding it's west-bound rapids was soon the center of their attention.

Doc groaned, futilely, "oh, Jesus," while Murphy wasted a whole clip, shooting uselessly at a Rainy Hedgebrook and Lara Croft who were already on a raft and were quickly out of sight.

Cavanaugh and Tripp arrived at Murphy's side, Tripp's bandaged left arm in a sling.

"You gonna kill me now, Murphy?" asked Cavanaugh.

"Not _yet_," Murphy said, turning away from the overlook.

She wasn't going to get away. To Murphy, this was a plain matter of _fact_.

"Break out the M217s," he barked. "Move!"

* * *

The white-water piled high on the walls of the narrow passage, rose up upon itself, and pounded the middle. Water rushed and churned. Water ripped down from the sides and up from beneath. Foam boiled up and exploded through "air" that was as wet as the waves. Class-Five-plus rapids thrusted the raft forward as though it were being driven by a rocket's fiery exhaust.

The passage was little more than a burrow, Lara observed, struggling with one of the short, collapsible oars she had found in the raft. The passage was more like an aqueduct than a river. It was probably very shallow--though its pressure and violence might well still be lethal. How such a waterway could have occurred naturally was a geological conundrum. It was as though this tunnel were trying to pass three-times more water than nature had ever intended, and yet it would not seem to be in the process of eroding any larger.

Lara speculated and rowed, while Rainy kept his foot wedged between two seat-pontoons and hung on for dear life. The floor was declining more sharply, and the water was getting faster.

"Lara, do you know what you're doing?" asked Rainy.

It sounded more like a desperate complaint than a question.

Lara had to finish shoving off from a wall before she could answer. Once she had saved the boat from being capsized by the wall's constant upsurge, and they were struggling no worse than the _usual_ desperate way to keep from being sunk, she replied:

"Of course."

"Because I--" Rainy began to say.

But Lara's eyes flashed past him, towards the mists behind him.

They had caught up again.

"Bugger."

Lara cursed herself. She never expected them to risk pursuing her on the water when they could easily have set up sniper posts in any of the gaps in the ceiling overhead. She had been taking it easy, for Rainy's sake; but now, since these brash men in black seemed so _determined_ to learn what its like to go against one of the top white-water soloist in the world...

"They never learn," Lara said.

"Lara!" screamed Rainy, but he wasn't screaming about their pursuers.

The path ahead would soon take a sharp, sudden dive. The river bottomed-out into a six-foot falls. She ripped into the water around her and generated enough thrust to literally _launch_ her raft from the top. While Rainy screamed, their raft went airborne and landed successfully on the smoother surface several feet past the falls' turbulent bottom-waters.

Lara heard Rainy cry out in triumph and then cackle at their pursuers. She risked a glance back, and smiled at what she saw. As the enemy on the rafts behind them had hit the falls, they had neatly flipped upside-down, and were being gargled in the foam. They had an adorably persecuted look on their faces. If was as though they felt the waters were _prejudiced_.

Lara laughed; but inside, her thoughts were dark. Whatever her advantages on the water, she had burned her last few rounds in the main chamber. She couldn't shoot back. Rainy seemed to be thinking this, too. By the time the first enemy raft had finished filling back up with men in black, he had dug out the second collapsible oar, and had joining Lara in rowing like mad.

* * *

"Faster!" Murphy screamed, blasting his MP5 clumsily, back and forth. He fell into Doc, and nearly dropped his weapon in the foam.

"Get off me!" screamed Doc, slugging Murphy back with his oar.

"Can't you go faster?" Murphy demanded, swapping clips.

"You want to try?" snapped a frustrated, exhausted, exasperated Doc. He was desperately trying to keep the boat upright in rip-tides that not only threatened to flip the little rubber raft, but crush it outright--and rip its riders to shreds.

Doc didn't want to be here. They were being washed down the throat of a cave, and had no way to know where they might be heading. Murphy had plopped them straight into hell on nothing but flimsy M217 Hasty Patrol Rafts. He hadn't even called in a sit report yet. If anything happened to them, there would be no help coming. No rescue. The best he could hope for was sappy excuse to his family and an all-expenses-paid funeral. And, even then, that free army coffin would be empty; because, if he went down out here, there'd be nothing left but guppy-bait.

Doc was striking the waves and foam with his oar, but nothing was grabbing back. It was though they were riding on a cloud, and his oar was sweeping vapid mist. That was when he thought about striking something _else_ with his oar. But knocking a man out of a boat--killing him for killing you--wouldn't undo an order that he simply shouldn't have obeyed in the first place. They might need every man they had to survive this--presuming survival was even still an option anymore. So, Murphy got to live. At least for now.

With a sharp glance backward, he saw how Cavanaugh had finally managed to pull poor, cripped-up Tripp back into their boat (damned fool thing even bringing him). Tripp was leaning over the side again a second later, stroking at the vapid water with his one good hand. His efforts were no more useless than Doc's own, he supposed. When Cavanaugh glanced up and made eye contact, Doc transmitted his incredulity and rage. Cavanaugh replied in kind. This was insane. Simply insane.

"Let's go, let's go!" screeched Murphy, his attention straight-ahead, to the Croft girl. To the mission. No, Doc thought, _to pride_. He hadn't even noticed how hard Cavanaugh and Tripp had gone down back there. He didn't _care_. This thing was completely out of hand.

Doc stroked deeper, knowing there must be a more forceful, cogent stream, pulsing like an artery, somewhere beneath all the foam. His wrists vanished in the white while he stroked. He nearly slipped out of the boat several times, but he finally he got the raft moving quickly enough to shut his fool lieutenant's mouth.

But not for long enough.

"What the hell is she doing--?" Followed by: "Hard to port!"

"What?" gasped Doc. He had joined the Army, not Murphy's fool Marines.

"Go that way!" Murphy screamed, pointing left.

Lara Croft was working her way toward a break in the left wall.

It was not the sort of fork that could rip a boat in half, but it was large enough to escape through. Her raft span a sudden pirouette and then vanished left--as though sucked-in by the off-shooting passage.

"Go! Get Going! Go!" screamed Murphy.

For once, Doc and the lieutenant were in total agreement. For the next several seconds, if Murphy were feeling unsatisfied with Doc's rowing effort, he certainly wasn't showing it. He let his MP5 hang from its neck strap and he grabbed an oar. The two men attacked the water ferociously, side by side.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Murphy growled, as the entrance threatened to pass by.

Then Doc suddenly noticed something. He felt the currents _changing_ around his oar. The water along river's edge was flowing in a different pattern than the main stream. His started thinking about Lara Croft's little pirouette. And Doc remembered something from his rudimentary white-water training. Rocks along powerful shores like these are often "undercut": That is, they are eroded underneath like a gutter in a bowling alley. Undercut waters swirl anything that falls into them, like a washing machine, and never let it go. Rafters routinely drown in them. Lara's pirouette had danced her across one, but if you hit one unprepared, there's no escape. Doc was already spinning his own boat, but it was too late for Cavanaugh and Tripp--who apparently had no idea what was coming. Doc watched helplessly while their raft upended and was chomped down into the foam as though the wall and the water's rim were the lips of an obedient Doberman Pincher and they had just become a meaty reward. The raft went down and shot back up--liberated of its living dead-weight.

"Dear God!" screamed Doc.

And, looking down into the waters beneath his own raft, he could _see_ Cavanaugh and Tripp, dragged along the bottom, twisting down stream. Though they eventually managed to fight their way back to air, they were being taken swiftly by the rapids, their heads bobbing and dunking and vanishing quickly away.

"Row!" screamed Murphy, but he wasn't looking at the drowning men. He was still looking through the entrance to the side-stream. He was _still_ obsessed with their quarry.

Doc was livid.

"They're gone!" insisted Murphy--and, alas, the two _were_ already out of sight.

Doc couldn't grasp that both men were dead. He wished he had had a moment to say goodbye to his comrades--or to shoot Murphy through his mutherfucking skull--but there just wasn't time for either. He had to be a soldier for a little while longer.

So he rowed.

* * *

It was more of a rip in the bedrock than a passage.

An earthquake or a volcano had obviously opened it--it was no product of erosion. Its walls were taller and steeper than the walls of the main stream, and its waters were _calm_. Unnervingly calm. It was a reprieve from being shot at, to be sure; but, instinctively, Lara and Rainy didn't relax.

They just _knew_ it wouldn't last.

And, unfortunately, they were right.

As the waters bent a gentle corner, they could see that they were headed straight toward the crater lake in the middle of the valley. Only, what they saw wasn't the lake itself, but rather was _proof_ of the lake. If Lara had ever doubted the crater lake's huge size, seeing what she saw then erased that doubt forever.

She prayed her eyes were lying.

She prayed hard.

* * *

Doc struggled at the portal.

The undercut current repeatedly reached up for him and his raft, and while he would have happily offered it Murphy for its trouble, it seemed little interested in making deals. So he twisted the raft and rowed, desperately fighting to gain admittance to a side-passage into which entry was already a practical impossibility. They were held in place solely by the power of Lieutenant Carl Murphy's stubborn tenacity: He simply refused to release the corner of the passage, even though his palms were red with blood.

"Come on!" Murphy shouted. "Faster! Faster!"

But, ultimately, it was futile.

Soon, Murphy would over-extend himself in his zealousness and would probably to be swallowed by the undercut and drowned like a dog. Doc was sorely tempted to assist the process, but he used his oar to strike the wall instead, severing the lieutenant's hand-holds and returning the raft to the main stream.

"No!" Murphy cried out, "no, no, goddamnit!"

But they were away, and Doc went straight back into the trusted old battle of man-and-oar versus all-of-the-water-in-the-goddamned-world.

"Goddamnit, she's going to get away!" Murphy yelled.

"So what?" Doc snapped.

"'So what'?" aped Murphy, incredulously.

"Yeah," barked Doc, finally venting. "_So what?_"

"You better check that attitude, mister!" the lieutenant said, borrowing a phrase from the colonel. From the lieutenant, it sounded tired and meaningless. Doc wasn't impressed. He scoffed brusquely.

"This is bullshit!" Doc said. "Shit, man, what's wrong with your fucking brain?"

"I'm going to complete this mission," the lieutenant said, returning his eyes forward.

"You're going to get us all killed, that's what you're going to fucking do!"

"You got a problem?" Murphy shouted over the passage's increasing roar.

The MP5 strapped around Doc's neck suddenly felt heavy. Very heavy. But Doc had _just enough_ reasons not to. _Just_ enough.

"Nawh," he finally said.

"Good."

Neither man said anything for a long while. Doc rowed while Murphy, having lost his oar, sat uselessly. It was an awkward impasse. Each man was obviously recasting these events in his mind, planning the report he would later tell the colonel. These would be very different stories. They stared at and listened to their mutually very different impressions of the surf and roaring waves until Doc spotted something in the foam ahead and leaped for joy.

"What?" asked Murphy.

"Hey!" exclaimed Doc, rowing enthusiastically. "Hey! Hey!"

Cavanaugh and Tripp were alive--or seemed to be!

Doc was quick to catch up, crashing his raft through the swirling eddies and bringing it alongside them.

"Hey!" shouted back Cavanaugh.

"Hey," called back a less enthusiastic, shivering, Tripp.

"Hang on!" Murphy said.

"It's not...deep," shivered Cavanaugh. "Just...damned fast."

He then realized that Cavanaugh and Tripp's feet were touching bottom. Though they were being dragged mercilessly, they could stand for brief moments in the rapids. Doc and Murphy pulled them aboard, and the two choking soldiers collapsed together in the middle of the rubber bed, curling about each other in a shivering ball.

"How's Tripp?" Doc asked.

"He lost a lot of blood," Cavanaugh said. "And he's got hypothermia."

"Will he be alright?" asked Murphy.

"I don't fucking know," Cavanaugh snapped, making no effort to conceal his bitterness.

"You get her?" shivered Tripp, looking at Doc. "You--you got her, didn't you?"

"Fuck no," said Doc.

"Shit," Tripp shivered, "shit."

"We should call this in," said Murphy--and his reluctance was _still_ palpable. "Get a heads-up."

"Already done," said Cavanaugh, obviously goading him. And it was good thing Murphy had nothing to say back, or jumping rank wouldn't be the last military sin Cavanaugh committed that day.

"What'd they say?" asked Murphy, relenting.

"There's some kind of opening up ahead," Cavanaugh said. "They can get us out from there."

"Good," Murphy said.

"We're done, man," said Doc, taking a second from rowing to stare Murphy down. "Whatever the fuck. No matter what. We're done."

"Yeah," trembled Tripp, "fuck this. We're done."

* * *

Murphy didn't like the way his soldiers were staring at him.

Throughout his tenure as their squad leader, he had always been a little out of touch with them. He was older than they were, he was more rigid in his ways, he was less forgiving of their mistakes. But it almost seemed as though his men might _mutiny_ if he didn't agree with their absurd proposition that they be allowed to quit the Operations Force--or at least to stand down for the rest of the mission.

Still, something told him that he had better keep his opinions quiet. It was something in their eyes. He knew that countermanding them wouldn't earn him back their loyalty. He needed to give them another morale boost, like the one in the cave, only stronger. Outside of a miracle, though, he couldn't imagine how one might possibly be manufactured.

Then he saw something past Doc's shoulder.

"Hey," Murphy said, sitting upright. "Hey!"

The others turned to look--

He'd gotten his miracle: The bitch was back!

Murphy pointed with one hand and brought his MP5 up in the other, firing.

In an instant, the others were firing too, even Tripp: propping himself up in the raft and supporting the weapon on the pontoon's edge.

"Get her! Get her! Get her!" screamed Murphy over the river's increasing roar, but the others needed no instigation, they were already on it. The water around her boat went crazy with bullet-splashes. In seconds, her raft burst with a "thwap!" even louder than the already-deafening thunder around it.

Murphy smiled triumphantly. It was providence. His men cheered while Croft's sinking, exploded raft got caught in the very same kind of undercut that had demoralized them in the first place! His men were on fire again, patting each other on the back, laughing, shouting, motivated. The poetic justice of it all flattered Murphy's sense of irony.

He had no idea that the Poets of Justice had only just started with him.

* * *

When the shots started exploding around her, she almost gave up. Her so-called "escape route" had been circuitous. It had returned her right back into her enemies' killzone. She sensed their gunsites crawling on her neck as if the prickly feelers of so many cockroaches. She itched to move, but it was futile. There was no outrunning bullets from this range. Not even her racing skills could save her this time: The dangers ahead would only kill her faster. One way or the other, she was doomed.

She would have given up right then, had not thoughts about the games she had always played wrong begun echoing in her mind. She thought about how she had never played any game she feared she might lose. To play such a game had always seemed pointless. She would often quit instead of lose, and she had usually felt justified in doing so--even if, consequently, emotionally empty inside. Back then, she had always kept her inner qualms hidden, because she didn't understand why she was having them. But now she knew. Bean had taught her.

It was time to test the theory. It was hopeless--in all ways, it was hopeless--but she would go down playing. Not to win, not to lose; but just to be the better _player_. The finish line was death itself, that was a given; but a certain _kind_ of death. To die, but to be the last dead man laughing. Had she given up instead--as she would have, had she still been the futile, bitter person she had been a day earlier--she would never have thought to whip her raft to the edge of the water and take advantage of the undercutting turbulence she saw brewing there.

Before the raft was shot out from beneath them, Lara and Rainy's bodies were already being chugged down by the undercut--and were being dragged safely away from the horrendous death that was awaiting the others, just a few short meters behind them.

"Got her! Got her! Fucking--!"

Murphy wanted to say the rest, but the words froze in his throat.

The river was loud. _Really_ loud.

It had been getting louder for awhile, but he had discounted it in the distraction of his obsession. Now that his fury was quenched, it was as though he were hearing it for the first time. He blamed his ignorance on the trickery of the acoustics of the cave. He blamed it on his soldiers for not warning him. He even twisted himself a way to blame it on Lara Croft herself. But, finally, he also realized that no matter how good your excuse was, it can't save you if you won't live to tell it.

His soldiers all went quiet, realizing what they were hearing. And _seeing_.

The river _ended_. There was nothing before them except an effervescent, rising, steaming mist, glittering with the morning sun.

When they went over that river-fall and into the cauldron beneath it, they fell for a very, very long time.

* * *

Lara held Rainy and wouldn't let him go.

He struggled, wanted loose, wanted air, wanted _up_--but _up_ was the one direction Lara knew best not to go. She dragged him _down_. Even though the undercut currents tried for sheer _hate_ to rend her body and that of her younger friend into shreds, and although even her younger friend fought mightily against her, she brought him down and across and through the cross-washing water-storm around them. Rainy, of course, had other ideas entirely. He wanted loose from this mad-woman, who must have seemed as intent upon drowning herself as him.

Rainy pinched, scratched, or bit just about every last inch of skin she had on her left hand; but, in an instant, the currents around them seemed to reverse, catch, and drag in just the opposite directions from those in which they had been flowing an instant before. Lara surrendered to the new current and dragged Rainy with her. They fired like a rocket through a tight crevice between two horizontal plates of rock, powered by the high-pressure of the water behind them. They shot out of the crevice along an eroded pathway etched into the wall of what was clearly a very large chamber. A stream in the pathway carried them over and beyond the worst of the waterfall's fever, dumping them in the relatively tranquil waters at the far-west of the lagoon.

Treading calm water, and by the light of the open sky above, they could finally see.

From the east, the underground river's comparatively meager stream spilled in. It amazed Lara to think she had seen that river as tremendous only a few minutes before. It was, in fact, just a trickle.

A trickle _in_ _comparison_.

The valley's crater lake--a good 200 feet of its shore--was spilling in from the south. It was an incomprehensibly massive waterfall. It shook the very water around her--at a distance of more than three-hundred feet. It's stream consumed the southern wall and took far more than its share of the eastern and western walls. It absorbed the falling toy-river midway down, and together they fell between one and two hundred feet before striking the deep water and exploding into a terrible cauldron that coursed out in all directions, filling the giant bowl around her. She had avoided it only by ducking into a side-crevice at the top and sliding down an outer wall. Had she gone straight over it...She might _still_ be trapped underneath.

"Oh my dear God," Rainy murmured, obviously staggered at the sight of the cauldron, and intimidated into the tiniest corner of himself by being at the foot of its power.

At that moment, their utterly shattered raft resurfaced. The water was carrying it backward, back toward the west wall, where it vanished--along with the foam and other debris with it. It suddenly occurred to Lara that this bowl, despite its size, would have completely overflowed had the water not been going _somewhere_. Beneath that wall was no little continuation of the underground river, but a natural _plumbing system_. It led to someplace with an even more insatiable hunger. They were drifting right into it. There was no escape.

Rainy was still hyperventilating from their last adventure. Lara thought about how she would tell him. There was no easy way. Perhaps not even a _possible_ way. The water was very cold, and that, at least, was encouraging. Her left hand was sore, so this time she would use her right.

She looked at him, and she said:

"Rainy, you're going to have to trust me."

And then she clenched down hard on his wrist and dove.

* * *

Cavanaugh burst through the surface only to find there was no surface there, only more water-- masquerading sadistically as air. The mist found his mouth when he tried to breathe and the foam found his eyes when he tried to see. He reached out with his one free arm and he kicked hard. He picked a random direction, and he kicked hard. He could have used his other hand--let go of what it was holding and used it to save himself--but his conscience wouldn't let him. He couldn't remember why, but it was somehow _understood_ that his other hand was off-limits. He made do without it, and swam in the universal direction of a drowning man: Whatever direction he happened to be pointed at. He didn't know which way might have been out of that hell, so he simply kept swimming and guessing.

He was in luck. When he surfaced again, he was clear of the worst of the cauldron. He could see suddenly, and could even breathe a little. He could remember what he was carrying and why it was important. It was Tripp. A comrade. A friend. He had him by his collar. He was unconscious, maybe dead. But the water was cold--and death, he knew, was a relative thing in cold water.

He saw an outcropping from the rocky northern wall. He could only see it because Doc was already standing on it, his hands on his hips. He was glaring angrily at the hell-torrent, cursing it, or daring it to try to kill him again. He was defiant in the way that only Doc, among all people Cavanaugh had known, could be defiant. But when Doc saw Cavanaugh approaching, his defiance gave way to compassion. He jumped into the water and assisted him and Tripp ashore. While Cavanaugh collapsed, exhausted, Doc restored Tripp's life with mouth-to-mouth. The big man fretting so over the smaller one was a tender image that Cavanaugh would treasure for years to come. Once Tripp was spontaneously breathing, Doc sat next to the other conscious soldier and released his tension with a loud sigh.

"Well," said Doc, "what do we do now?"

"Sit tight," Cavanaugh replied. "Chopper's on its way."

Doc grunted, reflecting.

"It worth it, you think?" Doc asked.

Cavanaugh glanced at the falls. The cauldron.

"I don't know."

"I just want to go home, man," Doc said.

"Yeah," Cavanaugh replied.

He was about to look away from the falls, to stare at his own feet, and to let the cold settle over him. He wanted, peacefully, to just _shiver_ for awhile. But something was moving in the cauldron. It broke the surface of the foamy mess that called itself water. It came up just below the falls. It hit the torrential barrage and vanished again. A hand. An arm. And then, the next time, a face. The whole thing was shoved mercilessly back below the surface. Despite logic, whatever it was, it refused to stay down and swim clear. It was maddened by the cauldron. Blinded by its own determination to be _right_: To be right about being able to rise _there_; to be able to _will_ the effervescent surface into breathable air. It was blinded by its own furious, conceited, short-sighted pride. Neither Cavanaugh nor Doc budged, though they were both looking at the cauldron, both seeing what the other saw.

There was also a voice. It said "help", but it could have been saying anything--pummeled as was by the unrelenting downpour. It could have been a piece of the rubber raft, tortured and warping beneath the stress of the cauldron, screeching out any old noise--even a noise that sounded like a human voice crying "help".

Cavanaugh saw that Tripp had awakened, and was also gazing at the cauldron. Only, Tripp's eyes weren't as resigned about what they saw as Doc's or Cavanaugh's. They weren't curious. They weren't speculative. They were earnest. They were disturbed. He looked up at the faces of his peers, questioning, wondering. His beleaguered hypovolemic circulatory system was trying--straining--to do something. _Anything_. His lips moved, but his mouth said nothing.

Soon, the disturbance beneath the falls subsided. And was gone forever.

"Did you see something, Cavanaugh?" asked Doc.

"Nope," said Cavanaugh.

And Tripp's eyes lowered. They closed in an exhausted sleep.

Soon later, the helicopter came. It lowered itself into the open cauldron and hoisted them out.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Wolfs Fishes

"_A strange feeling has come over me_

_A change of my mind and a change of my soul_

_Turning my back on the path I once knew_

_Sacrificing everything that I hold_

"_Becoming something foul and obscene_

_Losing the will to do as I feel_

_I feel now that I've lost all that I've loved _

_Promises forgotten_

_Friendships left in the dust_

"_A meeting long ago and far from my home_

_Now I try to remain try to your memory_

_Time goes by and years work their way on me_

_Memories dim as my body grows old..._

"_My eyes see more than most_

_Maybe I see more that I want to see_

_My ears hear more than most_

_Maybe I hear more than I want to hear_

_My mouth says more than most_

_Maybe I say more than I want to say_

_My heart feels more than most_

_Maybe I feel more than I want to feel..."_

**--Nuclear Assault.**

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: "Wolf's Fishes."**

The helicopter had landed in the clearing; but, even though the area was obviously secure, it took the major many moments to work up the nerve to debark. He looked out of the windows at all of the carnage. The sheer magnitude of it. Hundreds of men, women, and children lay strewn across the clearing; their heroic, agonized, faces steadily flushing pale. Their flowing blood was washing the green field red.

No one even noticed when Major Leipig finally stepped out of the giant metal bird. The other soldiers seemed just as stunned as he. He joined them in their incredulous fugue. He wondered, as they clearly did, what had gone wrong? How could their ends justify _this_? The only tribe called "Ingu" in South America was, now, simply _gone_. There was word for what they had done, and Leipig was whispering it in his mind--but only quietly: He feared their erstwhile ally, the soldier-dressed Ingu, Kini, might somehow overhear.

Kini stood before the cavern, watching soldiers pulling dead bodies out of the doorway. His hands were on his hips and his eyes were hard and unreadable. The soldiers who worked beneath his icy gaze were practically shaking with paranoia, one eye always on the MP5 machinegun he had slung at his side. Perhaps a few of the men wanted to break the clearing's silence, but none did. No one wanted to break his concentration. His effort to hold back his rage. No one wanted to be that first dead man.

Even the colonel seemed to respect Kini's possible volatility. He stood a ways off, watching. Leipig approached him.

"How do you apologize for something like this?" Leipig whispered.

"You don't," stated the colonel. And Leipig noticed he was clutching the pistol grip of his machinegun.

"Colonel..." pleaded Leipig. "He's the last of his tribe!"

"_Exactly._"

Spaulding turned toward the cave.

"Kini!" he shouted.

As Kini span, the other soldiers responded as well. They quietly backed away, leaving the native all alone. As they all had feared, the moment the clearing's silence was broken, Kini vented his rage.

"_I want blood!_" Kini screamed.

Surprised but unrepentant, the colonel demanded: "Whose?"

Kini stared back, apparently only then realizing the tension he had been causing. He, clearly, was gratified to realize his place at the center of their fear. He glanced around at all the soldiers, their hands on their guns. Watching him watching them. And he smiled, sickly.

"There is no need to fear me, Colonel," the husky native growled. "You did not do this. She did. From the first step she took into my village. I want her, Colonel. _I want her heart on my **blade**!_"

The scream of 'blade' echoed from the ridgeline walls and seemed to rip out through the mountains. By the time the echo faded, the colonel's hand was off of his gun. He was relaxed.

Spaulding nodded.

"You'll have her."

* * *

After diving beneath the caldron's west wall, Lara quickly found the swift-sucking passage. In all actuality, however, the passage found _her_--dragging her and her highly reluctant passenger swiftly into its stream.

Rainy was kicking and pinching and biting, and Lara held him tight--expecting nothing less than his best fight. No one could be expected to surrender peacefully and trust. He wasn't thinking, he was _drowning_. Lara was, deliberately, drowning a little boy. She was holding his little boy arms to his squirming sides. She held him until his little heartbeat turned irregular and quit. And then she prayed there would be a chance to resuscitate him. Once her cargo was limp, she began kicking her way down stream, gauging her progress by the increasing darkness of the tunnel. But the tunnel wasn't getting darker. It was getting lighter. It was strange. Curiosity, more than the desire to breathe, drew her back to the surface.

The ceiling was high.

It was a surprise. There should have been, at best, a few inches of air between the water and the ceiling; but, instead, it was a large cavern. She glanced between the swift-moving walls. This river wasn't the rapids of before, but it was still fast. And, judging by the violent sounds ahead, it led to places she did not yet want to go. By the strange light around her, which seemed to have no source, she spotted a shore and dragged herself and her cargo out of the water.

It was hard stone--cold and miserable--but it would have to do. She pushed Rainy to the shore and dragged him out by his shoulders. She turned him onto his back, and applied breaths to his lips and compressions to his chest. The process took a long time, but Lara continued undauntedly until Rainy's heart was beating and he was breathing on his own. After that, she dragged him with her to a wall, where she sat against the jagged stone and pulled him over her like a blanket, letting his warmth warm her, and hers him.

She watched the water's dim refractions dancing across the walls, and she listened to the sounds of Rainy's sleep. Rainy stayed asleep a long time. She started to worry that their respite would end, with gunfire, before he awoke. They had been stationary for too long. However, though Rainy surely needed another four hours, he must have sensed the same danger that Lara did. With an audible groan of effort, he managed to force himself awake.

"Shhhh..." she whispered.

"Cold..." he barely said.

"I know," Lara whispered. "You're safe."

"We," the boy stammered, shivering, "we made it?"

"Not exactly," Lara said, trying to sound soothing.

"Then..." Rainy stammered, "where are we?"

"In a cave someplace," she said.

"I hate the dark."

"Can't you see?"

This place was much brighter than the cave through which they had ridden their motorcycle. It was so bright, she could almost make out the colors of Rainy's shirt. Still, if the boy lacked night vision, there was an easy remedy.

"Wait a minute," Lara offered, pulling the knapsack from her back and opening it. She was reaching for the flashlight; but, the moment the bag was open, Rainy seized hold of her Idol, which was pulsing with gentle light.

"Jesus, God," murmured Rainy, lifting the Idol from the bag. "What the hell?"

Lara found the pulsing distracting, so she intensified its light into a perfect white glow by palming it tightly. Rainy gasped out in terror and scrambled away from her and the abhorrent device, pointing back with a shaky finger.

"What the fuck did you do!"

"Nothing," Lara whispered, troubled. "What's wrong? It reacts to touch."

"No, it doesn't!"

"You can see it does!"

"Lara, it's not supposed to glow!"

"What's it supposed to do?"

"What did you do to it?"

"I did nothing!"

"You did _something_," Rainy said, his voice beginning to strain.

"Now calm down," Lara said. "Come back here where it's warm, and tell me what this thing _is_. _Then _maybe we can figure it out."

"Okay," the boy said, relenting. He crawled back to Lara and snuggled close, continuing to stare incredulously at the light. He seemed hypnotized by it.

"What _is_ it?" Lara asked quietly.

"An ILC," Rainy said. "Inter-Location Communicator."

"What's that, exactly?"

"Do you remember that..._thing_...back at the camp?"

"The moonlander?"

"Yeah, that," Rainy said. "That thing's an Interlocutor. The ILC goes inside of it. The Interlocutor translates electromagnetic resonance into computer information."

"And what does the ILC do?"

Rainy hesitated before answering.

"It picks up EM resonance."

"From where?" she asked, sensing his reticence.

"Are we going to get out of here?" Rainy asked. At first it seemed he was trying to change the subject.

Lara was declarative.

"Yes," she stated.

"Then I," Rainy hesitated, "I won't tell you."

"What?" Lara protested. "Why ever not?"

"If I tell you, they'll know," he explained, "they'll be able to tell. I swear to God, they'll be able to tell if you know. The less you know, the less danger you're in."

"I can take care of myself."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"No, I don't know what _you're_ talking about, Rainy."

"You're goddamned right, you don't!"

"Then tell me!"

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Wolf's fishes."

Lara's train of thought derailed.

"_Pardon?_" she asked.

"Wolf's fishes," Rainy said. "That's what my grandfather called it."

Lara was quiet, waiting for Rainy to continue.

"When I was--" Rainy stammered, "--I don't know, eight or nine years old, I used to be real good with computers. I could break into programs and change them around. I didn't actually know how to code yet, but I was real good at seeing what-did-what. I was also real good at solving puzzles. Math puzzles, shape puzzles, word puzzles, what-have-you. One day, my _grandfather_"--and he emphasized _grandfather_ with hatefulness--"came to me with a puzzle he said he bought at a store. It was pretty tough. All about finding patterns in a huge mess of random numbers. It was kind of like the hacking I'd been doing on my computer, but it was a lot more fun. A whole lot more challenging. I asked for more. He brought me more. I did them. Each one was better than the last. It kept going like that until one time he stopped bringing them. He told me 'you need to go out and play big-boy games.' I was kind of an 'inside' kid, if you know what I mean. But then I got bored and I wanted more of those puzzles. Gramps still wouldn't give any to me, so I went to a big book store. They didn't have any, either. In fact, they'd never even heard of any 'puzzles' like what I described. They made me think I was crazy. That no one could solve puzzles like that, especially a eight- or nine-year-old kid. They threw me out."

"How uncharitable."

"So I went back to Gramps," Rainy said. "I 'confronted' him. I told him I wanted more puzzles. I _demanded_ more puzzles. He told me a story instead."

"A story?"

"He made it sound like it came from the 'wisdom of our ancestors' or something, but I'm sure he just made it up."

"Wolf's fishes," Lara said.

"Yeah, wolf's fishes," Rainy continued. "He said that once upon a time there was a guy out hunting for food for his tribe. He wasn't catching anything, so he was getting pretty desperate. He ran into another guy, though, and that guy had plenty of fishes. He asked him, he said: 'hey, where'd you get those? I've been out hunting all day!' The guy said, 'you don't want to know,' and he kept on walking. But the first guy kept on him, he said: 'hey, I've got to come home with something, or I'll be a disgrace to my tribe!' But the second guy said, 'Go away! You don't want these fishes!' The first guy said: 'Why not?' the other one said: 'They're wolf's fishes!' The first asked him: 'What are wolf's fishes?' and kept following him, pestering him about it. Finally, the guy with the fishes turns around and says: 'hey, if I give you a few fishes, will you back off and go away?' The first guy goes 'sure,' and takes a few fishes home. And these fishes aren't ordinary fishes either--I mean, these are some delicious fishes. Everybody gets hooked on them. Well, after he's brought them those fishes, he's a big hero with the ol' tribe, so the next day he goes again and does the exact same thing again, finding the guy with the fishes, pestering him until he gives him some. He does it for awhile until his people start wondering why he only brings home a few fishes at a time when everybody wants some. They hit him right in the pride, right? So he thinks to himself, 'hey, if that guy gets all those fishes every single day, there must be plenty more, right? So, instead of pestering him for fishes, I'll _follow_ him to where gets them!'"

"Does he?" asked Lara, amused with the story so far.

"Follow him?" Rainy asked, rhetorically. "Yep."

"And, what does he find?"

"All the fishes he wanted."

"Well," Lara said, "that's nice."

"And the wolf."

"Oh."

"That other guy had a deal with the wolf, you see? Sold his soul, you might say. He'd came upon the wolf's fishes one time and tried to steal some, but the wolf caught him. Told him that for punishment he was going to eat his whole damned tribe. He begged him not to do it, of course; so the wolf made him a deal. He could come and get all the fishes he wanted if the wolf could someday come and eat his children. And if he ever told anybody about the deal, the wolf would come and collect that night. He made the same deal with this new guy. The exact same fucking deal. And they lived fucked up ever after."

"That's a terrible story!"

"No shit, Dick Tracy!" Rainy said.

"Your grandfather told you that?"

"Yes."

"When you were _eight_?"

"Yes."

"How horrid!"

"I should've listened," Rainy said. "Grampa--wonderful, loving Grampa--gave me a wolf's fish. And I followed it back to the source, just like he warned me not to."

"You're saying that those puzzles he gave you--"

"Weren't puzzles, no," Rainy explained. "They were compiler code. From that thing."

He gestured at the ILC.

"And stupid me, I couldn't resist the temptation. I kept pestering him, and pestering him. Even after he'd told me that story so many times I had it memorized. I didn't care. I wanted more. And the fucker _gave_ them to me."

"You blame him for that."

"I was _eight!_" Rainy cried. "I didn't know what I was doing, and he _did!_ And he let me do it."

"Do what?"

Rainy paused, incredulously. He shook his head and sucked back tears.

"You see, there was this story about a wolf with these delicious fishes--"

"_Tell me!_"

"_No!_"

"I can take care of myself," Lara assured him.

He laughed at her.

"You don't want these fishes, Lara."

"I have to know," Lara said. "What can I possibly do about it if I don't know?"

"You can live to see another day," Rainy said. "You can go out into the world and look around and say, 'hey, there's nothing wrong with it.' You can have a good night's sleep. You can have a life, and be happy. But you learn what _I_ know, and you can't never go back again, Lara. Never again."

"What if I don't want to go back?" Lara asked, thoughtfully.

"What?" gasped Rainy. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I've changed, Rainy," Lara said. "Since I've been here. I've seen things and learned things about myself that make me not want to go back to being what I was before."

"Oh, fuck," whispered Rainy, "he got to you, didn't he?"

"Who?"

"Grampa, dumb bitch," Rainy said.

"Don't call me that," Lara protested, weakly.

"Grampa," Rainy said, "Grampa put all those dumb ideas in your head, didn't he?"

Lara wasn't comfortable with Rainy's attitude, but felt powerless against it.

"I spoke with him, yes..."

"He makes that shit up, Lara," he explained. "Just like he made up the wolf's fishes story."

"But wasn't he right about that story?" Lara demanded.

"Yes! But--" Rainy growled, biting his tongue symbolically. "That's not all!"

"Then tell me the rest."

He hesitated, tried to think it through.

"Look, this whole, this, this whole mess," he said, "it's that goddamned old man's fault!"

"What?" Lara replied. "How can you say that?"

"Because its true," Rainy said. "He's the one who started pushing everybody's buttons! He's the one who got the natives all riled up! He pissed off Corbin so bad he called in those fucking soldiers! It's his fault that they're killing everyone!"

"You don't really believe that," Lara said.

"Like hell I don't!" Rainy barked. "Let me guess. He told you about 'Qawalapeque'? About the end of the world?"

Lara didn't reply.

"It's all bullshit!" he continued. "He just didn't like it how the natives were getting treated here, so he went over to their village, learned their fucking language, and pulled some old moldy story of theirs' right out the fucking air, and started telling them how it was true! He stole the ILC out of the Interlocutor as some lame _protest_. Got everyone so pissed off that Corbin decided it'd be better to just get rid of us and send in his death squad! I only lived because I got a hold of the ILC during the fight and used it to sneak away!"

"How did _he_ survive?" Lara asked.

That one had Rainy stumped.

"I don't know," he finally said. "When the soldiers attacked, I ran. I figured he was dead, I..."

He drifted a moment. He contemplated.

"I didn't know he was alive until I saw him back there."

"When he really did die," Lara whispered.

Rainy tried to reply, but his first word was overtaken by a heavy sob. He closed his mouth and nodded.

"Oh, Rainy," Lara said, reaching for the little boy, holding him close, letting him cry in her arms.

For a long time, just letting him cry.

* * *

Their rescuers had taken longer than they had expected; and, when they did come, it wasn't at all the rescue they had been hoping for. By the time Tripp was taken up into the helicopter's steel extrication litter, he was completely unconscious. The cold had finally taken its toll. Even Doc and Cavanaugh, though uninjured, were at the cusp of hypothermia by the time the giant helicopter arrived--and then its rotor-winds only added to their misery. By the time they got aboard, the two were enraged beyond reason.

Cavanaugh collapsed on the helicopter's floor the instant he was freed from the pulley harness. He didn't take the hand-up offered by Third Squad soldiers Wallis and Ross, but Doc accepted it eagerly and climbed angrily to his feet. He stepped over Cavanaugh and marched straight at the colonel, who was strapped into a jumpseat alongside the Pentagon major, Leipig. Leipig was too busy with his laptop computer to notice Doc, but the colonel was already sizing him up. He clearly intended to let his haggard, beaten, freezing soldier have his say. And it was a damned good thing.

"What the fuck took you so long?" Doc shouted.

"At ease that!" demanded Captain Bailey, seated on the other side of Spaulding.

The colonel raised a hand to quell his defensive captain.

"The water's taking the ILC deeper beneath the mountain," the colonel said, gesturing at Leipig's computer, which was obviously tracking the ILC signal's progress. "The signal's almost too weak to read now. Where's Lieutenant Murphy?"

"He's dead!" Doc barked, taking heart when Cavanaugh joined him at his side. "We all could have died!"

"There was no time," the colonel explained.

Doc realized what the colonel meant. Secured at the rear of the helicopter was the Interlocutor, wrapped top to bottom in plastic. Three inflated M217 Hasty Patrol Rafts had been wrapped around it and roped down hard. It was rigged for water operations. They had delayed their rescue to do the rigging. Doc could see that Cavanaugh understood the colonel's delay; but, to Doc, the colonel's explanation didn't seem a good enough excuse.

"Man," Doc fumed, "Tripp almost _died._"

The colonel eyed his subordinate levelly.

"Your point?" he said.

Doc was still angry, but his rightness had evaporated.

"I've reconsolidated the squads," the colonel said, resolving the discussion. "Taylor's got the tactical squad. Their mission is Croft and Hedgebrook. I want you two with them."

They needed no explanation. There had been massive casualties in the clearing before First Squad had even left. And now that they were all that was left of First Squad, it was only natural that they be absorbed by another group.

"Yes, sir," replied the two, disheartenedly.

"Good," the colonel said. "Now get suited up."

It took them a moment to realize what they had just been ordered to do.

All the others were getting into wet suits, strapping airtanks to their backs.

The two men groaned and did what they were told.

* * *

The tunnel was warm. Warmer, at least, than the cold river bank they had left behind.

Once Rainy's attitude had reacquired its usual acid, Lara knew that his most desperate needs for rest had been met and she had started them walking. Walking not only dried their clothes and warmed them, it gave them a sense of progress and a reason for hope, which was just what Rainy needed. They had a long adventure before them, and she would need him able to run again soon. The enemy couldn't be _that _far behind.

Lara had hoped to find the path along the river bank that Bean had mentioned, but since it didn't seem to start until farther downstream, and since even the dry caverns in a system like this tended to parallel the water anyway, Lara had led Rainy into a dry, adjoining tunnel instead. Neither had had any desire to leap back into the freezing river.

Conversation resumed by Idol light.

"I think you misunderstood your grandfather, Rainy," Lara said, sliding her fingertips along the rocky texture of the wall. "He was a great man."

Rainy followed behind her, dancing his flashlight's white sphere on the same wall, just behind her.

"He was a superstitious old fool," Rainy said.

"Have you no respect for your traditions?"

"No," Rainy said. "But neither did he. He makes his shit up. It doesn't come from 'tribal tradition.' It comes off the top of his damned fool head."

"I can't believe that."

"Like those guns," Rainy continued. "What did you call them? 'His legacy'? What? They're supposed to be blessed or something? They belonged to his grand-dad. Grampa saw Great-Great Grampa kill a man for stealing a horse or something. Gramps was--I don't know--six or seven years old at the time. And Great-Great Grandpa told him that the guy he killed was evil because his guns only kill evil and can't kill good people. Gramps used to keep them in a display case at his house, and I heard the same story when I was six. I knew it was bullshit by the time I was seven. You tell a story like that so your baby grand-kid doesn't have nightmares. You don't keep believing it when you're in your seventies!"

"You misunderstand."

"Do I?"

"Yes!" Lara said. "It's a matter of insight."

"You just don't know the deal," Rainy said. "Any 'insight' you think he had was probably just because he knew you."

"He what?" asked Lara, stammering, protesting--and then pausing, considering.

"We all know you, Lara," Rainy said. "You're David Croft's grand-daughter. The 'Wonder-Brat.'"

"The what?"

"That's what we called you."

"'We'?" she asked.

"The other guys in the Project," Rainy explained, drawing Lara's ire, and effectively changing the subject. "We called you lots of names."

"Any _nicer_ ones?" Lara asked.

"No."

"Oh, well," she sighed. "I never could win a popularity contest."

"What are you doing here, Lara?" Rainy asked, suddenly. "Don't get me wrong; I mean, you saved my life and everything, and I'm glad you were around when you were. Sort of. But, I don't get how you fit. You don't belong here."

"No," Lara murmured, "I suppose I don't."

"So?"

"That plane crash?" Lara said, "I was actually in it when it happened."

"You were in it?" Rainy asked. "I mean, Corbin said you should have flown the other way, but--didn't you parachute in? I thought you came on purpose."

"No, not really," Lara explained. "Jake sabotaged the plane."

"Rat-bastard!"

"He's was like a father to me, you know," Lara said. "I'd never had a father. Not a real one."

"Well you picked a fine one in him," Rainy said. "That motherfucker'd sell Satan his own granny for a better microchip and Senate approval."

Lara felt discomfort welling up from within her. She gave it vent.

"What's my grandfather have to do with this?" Lara finally asked, feeling instantly defensive.

"Oh? Money Bags?" said Rainy with a grunt. "His bucks. His finance."

"These are his mercenaries?"

"'Mercenaries?'" asked Rainy, taken by surprise. "These aren't mercenaries, Lara."

Lara shook her head, deeply troubled.

"Well, then," she said, "who are they?"

"Jesus, Lara, you don't know nothing."

"Enlighten me."

"Oh, God," Rainy whispered, mostly to himself. He added more loudly: "You just better not die, do you hear me? 'Cause I couldn't take it."

"I can take--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah; you can take care of yourself, I heard you the first few times."

"It's true, I can," Lara said. "And I can take care of you, too."

"I'm going to hold you to that!" Rainy exclaimed. "The last time someone promised to take care of me, he wound up sending in soldiers to kill me. The time before that, and that guy forgot all about it, too. He got himself killed by the other guy's soldiers. So you've got to promise me you're not going to do anything stupid. I believe you when you say that you get can us out of here. Hell, if anybody can, you can. But not if you go native like Grampa! Or try to be some kind of fucking hero!"

"I won't."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay."

"Tell me."

He hesitated.

"_Tell me_."

Rainy took a deep breath, and began.

* * *

Kini was far ahead of them.

His legs and fins kicked rhythmically. His head darted to the sides and up as though it were somehow possible to either see or hear through the pitch black water around them. Kini hadn't activated the red-lensed flashlights that Doc, Cavanaugh, and the others had, so it was a mystery why the intense native wasn't bumping into the walls of the underground cavern. He seemed as sure-headed in this black, fast-moving stream as any sports diver beneath a calm, sun-lit sea.

After re-arming the two with weapons and equipment still smudged with the blood of the dead from whom they had been salvaged, the colonel had dumped Doc and Cavanaugh from the helicopter, with the five who remained from Fourth Squad, back into the cauldron. They had swum below its foamy back wall and were deep in an underground river, prosecuting their newly singular order: Kill Lara Croft. There was to be no more pussy-footing around. Even if they lost Rainy Hedgebrook in the process, it was an acceptable loss--if a regrettable one. Terminate her with extreme prejudice and retrieve the boy only if possible. The implication of this reversal of priorities was in no wise lost on them: Things weren't going as Spaulding had planned.

Which was, no doubt, why he had dropped Kini's leash.

Kini was a fanatic; and, normally, one would be wise to keep him under tight control--but the colonel knew it was time to make an exception. Doc and Cavanaugh had experienced Lara Croft first-hand, and it was a credit to the colonel that he had found the wisdom to know that beating her would require something more than simple tactics. The others may have been loyal and patriotic in ways that Kini could never be, but Kini possessed the gift of _obsession_. It gave him a most amazing ability to _commit_. Like a pit bull terrier, once Kini bit into something--a new technique, a philosophy, a grudge--there was no shaking him. When he had decided to join the Project five years ago, he had walked away from his future chieftainship, his friends and his family, the only reality he had ever known, and had entered the New World with inhuman alacrity. There had been no moment of hesitation in him. His new peers, of whom Doc and Cavanaugh had been an incredulous two, were more afraid for Kini for his danger to himself than for any external foe he might face. He was an incredible fighter, and he took to the training like a fish to water; but, suggest to him a man can fly, and off a cliff he'd jump. When Kini was around, no questions like, 'what if we're wrong?' were ever voiced. Somehow, everyone sensed that if they induced self-reflection in Kini it would be like lighting a wick. His brand of courage comes only at a price.

There must have been a real horror in the hearts of the troops around him when his last family member fell. It must have seemed nothing less than a miracle that his present rage had deferred itself from the Project's foreign defenders long enough for Spaulding to work his magic--by sicking problem #2 on problem #1. You couldn't help but feel sorry for Lara Croft now. It had been the Spaulding's Play of the Day, so far as Doc and Cavanaugh were concerned: He had set him _loose_. No one, not even Fourth Squad's ostensible leader, Lieutenant Taylor, dared pretend government of Kini now. He wasn't a man, he was force of nature; and, like the juveniles behind the Alpha-wolf, their only job was to follow along and lick up the scraps. Swimming behind him, Doc and Cavanaugh felt a strange mix of confidence and horror that was exhilarating.

Like being remoras on the hide of the biggest, baddest, shark in the bay.

Waiting for the kill.

Kini stopped, halting them with a motion of his hand. He used his buoyancy control vest to make his body slowly rise. The other divers' red-lights going out one by one, Kini seemed to vanish into the murk above their heads. He hovered there, and finally flashed two pulses of red--the signal to follow.

* * *

Rainy walked and talked.

"Fifty years ago, your grandfather found something that would make the world go ape-shit if they knew about it. He was into all kinds of weird shit, you know. He ran all around the world looking for the answer to the Pyramids and the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis and whatever else you can probably think of."

"Yes," replied Lara. "I've heard. But as I understood it, he grew out of that sort of thing as he got older."

"Not exactly," said Rainy. "He just found one to focus on."

"Which was that?"

"They call it the 'Singularity,'" said Rainy. "He found it in California, near where he built his big hacienda. It's why he built it there. When Croft and his group arrived, my grandfather was already there. Meditating or something."

"Meditating?" asked Lara. "What is this 'Singularity'?"

"It's a bit tough to describe," Rainy said. "Something to do with the Earth's magnetic field. A 'conflux' or 'confluence' or a something-or-other. Apparently, its a place where all of the radio transmissions in the world criss-cross."

"From all over the world!" she exclaimed.

"Uhn-huh," Rainy said. "No matter where the source was, no matter how weak the signal. It's all there in the Singularity--almost as if you were standing ten feet from the original source."

"That's impossible," Lara said. "Are you saying this is a natural phenomenon? It's been there all along? How come we've never noticed it before?"

"Oh!" Rainy said, as though just that moment recalling the detail, "it's only readable if you're right on top of it. If you're even a little ways away, it just sort of goes blank. Sort of cancels itself out. When you're in, you're really in; but when you out, you're dead out."

"Still," Lara said, "it should have disrupted someone's transistor radio or something by now!"

"Oh--oh--" stammered Rainy, apparently realizing he had miscommunicated an important detail. "You can't pick it up with normal radio anyway. It's an interference pattern. It's only on a certain super-high frequency. Only a specially charged Landez crystal will pick it up."

"A--" Lara asked, "a what?"

"Landez crystal," Rainy explained. "Really rare. The ILC you're carrying is capped with one. It's part of the machine that reads the Singularity."

She gestured with her Idol.

"This?" she said.

"It's not supposed to glow," Rainy said. "But it's structure _is_ unique. If you charge one up right, it reacts to the Singularity. Makes it possible to read it. The ILC goes inside of the Interlocutor. And if you put both within range of the Singularity, you're in business."

Lara shook her head.

"But that still doesn't make sense," she said. "How did they find this Singularity if they needed to know about this special crystal in order to build a machine to detect it? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"The chicken," Rainy declared, adding, "So to speak. I mean, your grandfather was already working with Landez crystals and he already had a few whacked-out theories of his own. He guessed that something like the Singularity was possible and had people out looking for it."

"Ah..." Lara conceded, shrugging. "I suppose that is possible, at that. I mean, God knows, he had enough 'people' running around for him."

"So, he found my grandfather there--"

"Yes," Lara interrupted, "and your grandfather was meditating?"

Rainy chuckled nervously.

"Yeah," he said. "He told me that he could 'feel' the Singularity in his mind. He went there to meditate a lot. He believed it was the Voice of God."

"Hmmm..." considered Lara, "It makes sense in a way. Strong electromagnetic fields have been connected to hallucinations and other strange psychological phenomena. For instance, did you know that UFO sightings are often connected with high EM?"

"Yeah, I know," said Rainy. "Anyway, they set up an Interlocutor there and got to work. Today, David Croft's got the most sophisticated laboratory complex in the world under that mansion of his."

"So," Lara deduced, "for fifty years, my grandfather's been making his fortune by listening to other people's telephone calls. I should have known--"

"No, no, no," Rainy interrupted. "Up until ten years ago, they couldn't make heads or tails of the Singularity. I mean, they knew what it was and everything, but trying to separate one radio transmission from the gazillions of little signals was like trying to find a needle in a warehouse full of haystacks. Unless they knew exactly what the transmission they wanted looked like, they couldn't pick it out from the noise. They did a bunch of experiments in the Fifties, sending out test transmissions from all over the world and trying to receive them through the Singularity. They proved that it really was what they thought it was, but after that they didn't make a lot more progress with the thing. To pick out a signal, you also had to be sending that signal; and of course, if you're sending the signal yourself, it's not really good for much."

"What happened ten years ago?"

"What?" snapped Rainy, "were you asleep? Computer ka-_boom_."

"Ah."

"They'd been buying the best computers there were to try and decipher the Singularity all along, but it's a mess in that thing," Rainy said. "And at the same time, with more and more people going wireless? They could have linked up a hundred Crays and it wouldn't have done them any good. But now the computers have just about caught up with the mess."

"Hmm," murmured Lara doubtfully. "So, when did you come into the picture?"

"About four years ago."

"Your grandfather recruited you?" Lara asked.

"Sort of," Rainy replied. "He introduced me to Corbin, and Corbin recruited me."

"That would have made me about sixteen," she said. "He was taking me to swim meets back then. I remember one time he took me deep-sea diving against my grandfather's wishes. I never would have imagined that at the same time he was..."

"I hated you so much, Lara," Rainy said.

"What?" she asked.

"I've just got to say it," Rainy said. "I mean, you've got a right to know it. All that time I was practically in chains, locked away like a prisoner in that basement in Los Angeles. They had me declared dead, you know."

"Oh my God!" Lara said.

"Corbin came and went, laughing, talking about you," Rainy continued. "You were living right upstairs, but I only knew you from TV. I saw every event you went to. All the victory parties. All the people you had all around you, adoring you. You and me, we were pretty close, in a way. Both orphans, kind of. And we both had Corbin. He was like my daddy too, you know. It was like I knew you. Like we were brother and sister. Only, you got to be free."

"I'm so sorry, Rainy."

"Don't be," Rainy said. "I got over that. After that, I just hated you for general purposes."

"Do you still hate me?"

"Yes."

Lara paused, unable to think of a reply. She began to think about the cave around them instead.

"You know, I think we're heading farther beneath the mountain," she said.

"And, it wasn't like I was just jealous or anything," Rainy continued, "because it wasn't like I could ever have done the amazing stuff you do, and I didn't really want to. But you were out there. We were stuck working for your grandfather, and the same man who I saw on TV acting like your butler was my boss. It was like I worked for you. Like I was slaving so that you could be free."

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?" said Lara solemnly.

"Yeah," said Rainy. "I've thought about it. Not much else to do, underground with no friends who aren't twenty years older than you."

"Couldn't you quit?" she asked. "Couldn't you leave? Couldn't you run away? Wouldn't your grandfather have helped you get out?"

"I couldn't leave!" Rainy said. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't have. I never even thought about running away, anyway. Where would I go? I joined the Project when I was just a kid! I don't know anything else. And it was just getting good. The ultimate hack."

"Deciphering radio noise?" asked Lara, disparagingly.

"No!" replied Rainy. "This is probably the biggest computer-assisted decode operation ever! We've got a couple thousand mainframes in back in the U.S., and another couple dozen here. We're always upgrading or replacing or reprogramming them to keep up with latest technology. We _are_ the cutting edge. And we were so close!"

"Close to what?"

"Complete triangulation."

"You just lost me."

"We've got this place talking to the L.A. site," Rainy said, "err--that is, interfering with it."

"To what end?" snapped Lara, "what is this place?"

"Another Singularity."

"A second one?" Lara asked. "How many are there?"

"Just two, I think," Rainy said. "I hope."

"And you have them 'talking' to each other?"

"Interfering, yes."

"Why?"

"For triangulation."

"Meaning..?"

If they're both picking up the same radio signals, it's going to take the signals longer to get to one than the other, right?" Rainy said. "So, we set the computers bouncing interference patterns off each other and we look for resonance. Once you've got enough resonance patterns with the same 'look' to them, you can set them aside because you know they're from the same place. The same place on the Earth, that is."

"Okay."

"Once you've got enough patterns to start guessing which new signals are also coming from that area, you can cancel them out and leave the rest. You can make the big mess a little smaller, one city-sized area at a time."

"Sounds tedious."

"In a way," Rainy said. "But in a way it's fun, because every now and again you get this cool cascade effect where a whole bunch of signatures all come out at once. We call the interference patterns 'signatures'."

"So," Lara said, "for four years you've been identifying these interference signatures?"

"Not only that, no," Rainy said. "Like I said, it was starting to really get cool. It was like...It was like...It was like the Singularities had started coming alive, kind of. I don't know how to explain it any better. It wasn't like just recording numbers at all anymore--it was more like trying to 'trick' the data into coming out. We were figuring out ways to outsmart the chaos. Force out cascades. You ever try to hack mother nature?"

"No."

"Well, it's cool!"

"I suppose."

"You don't--" Rainy almost said. "You're not impressed?"

"I find it hard to believe that even with the best computer modeling technology in the world we could unwind a million-million radio signals from an interference blur," Lara said.

"Well," said Rainy, defensively, sullenly, "I don't really understand how it all works on the inside. I'm a hacker, not a tech guy. They just give me random data and I dream up programs where the numbers make sense."

"I'm not disparaging your role, Rainy," Lara said. "I just don't think I'll be able to understand what it was you were trying to accomplish until I see it for myself."

"That...might...be...a problem," Rainy said.

"What do you mean?"

"This isn't just your rich grandfather's pet project anymore," Rainy said. "It hasn't been for ten years. Even if we get out of here alive, even if we get back to the 'States and everything, it's not over. There's no place to hide from Jake Corbin. He doesn't work for your grandfather. That was just a front. Corbin works for the National Security Agency."

"The NSA!" Lara exclaimed, shocked.

"Yeah," Rainy said. "This thing goes _up_. Maybe all the way up."

"This is a federally-funded project, then?" Lara asked.

"Not completely," Rainy said. "I mean, I don't know a whole bunch about that, but I do know that when the new computers and stuff are being shipped in, it's David Croft paying the shipping, not Uncle Sam, if you see what I mean."

"I understand," said Lara. "It's a secret project. They probably don't want it on the books. They must have made a deal of some kind."

"Yeah," agreed Rainy, "or something."

"And these are government soldiers, then?" Lara asked.

"Paramilitary," Rainy said. "On the books, they work for Croft, but Corbin recruited them. They're his. They're from the Special Forces and the CIA and some other places. I met a few of them a couple of years ago when we first opened up shop here and we weren't sure how the locals were going to take to us. I didn't like them even then."

* * *

Three overlapped and hard-lashed M217s emerged beyond the plane of the river's east-most wall. The plasticized Interlocutor they buoyed leaped atop the eddies like a joyful toddler on a trampoline, enjoying its fast ride downstream. When the divers emerged after, they had to chase it down and calm its exuberance. Once enough black-gloved hands held it, four ordinary M217s emerged around it, inflating into proper rafts. Colonel Spaulding and Major Leipig climbed into one raft while the other soldiers loaded equipment cases into two of the others. Leipig opened the computer case attached to his wrist while four of the other soldiers piled into two of the empty rafts and the six remaining divers submerged again. Captain Bailey and Lieutenant Wallis occupied the lead raft; Ross and Sydwinsky, the sentry raft alongside their equipment; and the colonel and major, the raft farthest rear--where they could converse in relative privacy.

"Status?" asked the colonel, removing his diving mask.

"Strange..." replied the major, typing entries and skimming data. "There's an anomaly."

"Interference? Same as before?"

"No, something different. It's..."

"Let me know as soon as--"

"Uh-oh."

"What?"

"Oh, no."

"What!"

"A problem, sir," the major said, between anxious keystrokes.

"What kind of a problem, Major?" growled the colonel.

He would never have predicted the answer he received:

"It's _louder_ here."

* * *

Kini was on the shore.

It's bank was still wet where Lara had resuscitated Rainy. Its wall was still stained where the two fugitives had rested their long, futile rest, waiting for him. He knew this because he could hear them. They were still nearby. His powerful ears were perked to the sound of the accursed woman's voice--filtering out the boy's insignificant whine. He focused Lara Croft's voice as though through a lens into his heart, amplifying the hate.

He had a cocky half-smile on his face while he kneeled and unpacked his MP5 from its water-tight container, silently watching the rest of Fourth Squad's seven divers rising behind him. He coolly directed them each toward strategic emergence points while he assembled his weapon, removed his wet-suit, and got himself ready.

"Dirty deals, secret projects, death squads?" Lara said. "I can't believe my grandfather would be a part of it."

"You can't blame him," Rainy said. "My grandpa talked him into it."

"Bean did?"

"Yeah," Rainy said. "The Project was asleep until ten years ago. There were only a few people in it, not really getting anywhere. There'd been government in it before, but they'd lost interest years ago. Grampa brought them back. He convinced your grandfather that he had to bring them back if they were going to make any more progress. They'd just found this second Singularity, and Croft alone didn't have the clout to force Peru to let them set up shop."

"Why would your grandfather instigate this?" Lara asked. "It all just seems so...dirty."

"Maybe you didn't understand him as well as you think you did," said Rainy.

"Oh?"

"It's the dirty part that made him want in," Rainy explained.

"Now, I, I can't believe--" Lara said.

"No, no," Rainy said, defensively, "hear me out. Gramps was a crusader. This whole Project scared the hell out of him. He knew it would go on with him or without him, so he nominated himself its official 'conscience' and started going around telling people how they were supposed to feel about everything. When it was just him and few others under Croft, it was fine; but it really got on everybody's nerves later--especially Corbin's. But Big Man Croft liked it that way. Gramps was his eyes and ears in the Project labs. The old man never came around himself, but Gramps was always running back and forth."

"And when the government stepped in, they just let him carry on this way?"

"They didn't have any choice!" Rainy said. "Oh, Corbin complained about it all the time--man, but he complained! But it was Croft's money! And Bean was the only one Gramps ever listened to. Croft kept sending us these crazy-ass memos about new ways to do this and that and the other, and we all just knew it was coming straight from Grampa Bean. Corbin used to want changes and stuff, but every time, he had to convince Grampa first. There was no going around him. Croft would have burned all his money as a sacrifice to the sky-gods if Bean had told him to. He thought that my grandfather was the Second Coming or something."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Rainy said. "Probably because of how he could 'feel' the Singularity and all this other mystical shit. Croft was a real sucker for that. I think he figured that since Gramps could feel it in his head, he had the inside scoop on everything."

"That's hardly sufficient reason for a bureaucracy as powerful as the National Security Agency to rearrange its standard operating procedures," Lara said. "Surely when they made their deal, whatever it was, the NSA didn't simply blindly ascent to being lead around by the nose by an elderly Navajo."

"Well, now," said Rainy, "that's where you're exactly wrong."

"Oh?"

"How do you think they found this place?"

"I would have assumed in the same way as they found the other."

"Not hardly," Rainy said. "Bean found this place. Out of the blue. He told Croft to send a survey team here. He never told anyone exactly how he knew, just a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo. He said 'an angel' told him. In any case, that alone was more than enough to justify letting him keep on doing his routine even after the government stepped in--both to your grandfather and to Corbin. What was he going to find next? If it hadn't been for the second Singularity, we never would have made the progress we've made, and no one had any idea how he found it!"

Lara stopped dead in her tracks.

It took Rainy another few steps to realize she'd stopped walking, but then he sensed the perturbation coming off of her as though in waves. He stopped walking, too, and looked up into her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"_That's _where I know him..." she whispered.

"Grampa?" asked Rainy.

"Yes," replied Lara, though her mind seemed adrift. "He came to me when I was twelve years old. I'd just graduated high school--tested my way out of it, actually."

"Yes, I heard about that," murmured Rainy, tautly.

"I didn't know what I should do next. I was looking for purpose. I was very depressed," Lara said. "My grandfather didn't suspect it, but I was abusing drugs and things. Drinking. Thinking about hurting myself. I didn't have any friends."

Rainy was quiet.

"Come the next day, I had thought it had all been in my head," Lara said. "I tried not to think about it. Thought I had forgotten it, until now. But no...no... An old man _did _visit me in the Westchestershire house. I thought it had to be a dream because how else would a dirty man like that have gotten past security? He had a map of the world. He asked me, 'where did I want to go?' I thought it was the strangest dream I'd ever had."

"What," asked Rainy, "what did you say?"

"I pointed at the map," Lara said. "I wasn't thinking clearly. If this really happened at all. I tell you, Rainy, if I wasn't just dreaming all of this, then I know that at the very least I was stoned out of my brain. And deliriously depressed."

"Where did you point..?"

"I pointed here."

"You pointed at Peru?"

"I pointed right at this place!" Lara said. "It was a particular lump on the map. I remember that..."

"Lara, you're scaring the fuck out of me."

"What's here, Rainy?" Lara asked. Lara _demanded_.

"I told you," Rainy said, swallowing. "Another Singularity."

"What's _really_ here?" Lara insisted, her tone implying she knew more about the Project than she possibly could. As though she were an _insider_. The effect was chilling.

"A Singularity," he tried to insist--but it came out as a whimper.

"Is that all?"

"Well," said Rainy, "No. I mean, it is bigger."

"How much bigger?"

"A lot bigger," he said. "The whole damned valley."

"Why is it bigger here?"

"We," stammered Rainy, "we don't know. It just is."

And that, at least, was true--but he dared tell her nothing more.

Lara, icily silent, turned her attention to her Idol, peering into its glow as though it were a crystal ball. She seemed to be less thinking _about _itthan _feeling _it pouring over her face.

Rainy was worried. He wondered what might be going on within the young woman's mind.

Suddenly, Lara snapped -to and shot him a piercing gaze.

"Rainy," she whispered intensely, looking past his shoulder, "shh."

Rainy froze. He felt as though he and Lara Croft had just become a pair of statues in a busy public garden. Or a pair of prey animals, thinly veiled by the camouflage of their coats, listening to the predator's footfalls. He dared not even look.

In an explosion of movement and noise, Lara shoved him forward and screamed--

"_Run!_"

as the cavern ricocheted hell all around them.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Blessings Beyond Measure

**INSTRUMENTAL: "_Minaguroshi no Kodomo_"_--Mitsu Mix_.**

**_The Children of_ _Massacre_**

**--Unknown **

(Original Television Soundtrack: _Rurouni Kenshin_.)

**CHAPTER TWELVE:** **"**Blessings Beyond Measure.**"**

The cavern ricocheted hell all around them.

Lara less _shoved_ Rainy than _whisked_ him before her, like driftwood by a tidal wave. Though clearly blind, having dropped his flashlight, Rainy would seem at have surrendered his will to her the instant the cave had lit up around them. He offered no resistance while she guided his head and shoulders around corners and beneath low-hanging stalactites. Perhaps, after her performance in the clearing--and in the tunnel and in the cauldron--he had decided she was, indeed, infallible. His body certainly felt that way in her hands: malleable; trusting her implicitly.

But she knew it wasn't a trust she deserved. This mad dash was no first-phase of some grand strategy. She had no magic reversal to pull out of her sleeve. The situation was just as bad it seemed. They were like rabbits in a dog kennel--they were being _hounded_. Speed and luck were all that kept them from getting shot in the back.

She had never anticipated they would get so close so quickly--and so _impossibly_ quietly. Only one man could have done this, and she had thought it impossible that he might ever try to do it again. It astonished her that _Kini_ was still in the fight; and yet there his face had been, lit up by muzzle flares, leading them. Leading them! He was an Ingu himself! How could he side with the monsters that had butchered his tribe? Bean had said he was an outsider in spirit, but surely even he had a _limit._ If these horrible men were not his enemy--if he hadn't seen that fact by _now--_

…The thought of all that rage, bottled up, and redirected toward _her_…

Had there seemed even a _remote_ possibility that Kini might still be with them, she would at least have had the foresight to fish out Bean's six-guns. Against Kini, even those few shots would have been better than no defense at all. Lara had no qualms admitting it: The thought of facing Kini again, _now_, armed or not, scared the living hell out of her.

But then everything changed.

The ground ran out beneath them.

For an instant, Rainy and Lara were kicking at empty air; and Rainy was clutching at Lara's body in a panic--and Lara was shoving him away. He gasped out at this betrayal, but he grunted appreciatively when the shove turned what would have been a knee-shattering straight-legged landing into a rough but bone-forgiving summersault. They had landed in a depression, many meters long and four feet deep.

Rainy gasped out in dread. To him, perhaps, it seemed to be the end of the line. But Lara realized his outburst was probably just a gut reaction to what she herself was doing--something that, admittedly, must indeed have looked profoundly suicidal. She had jumped up to the edge of the drop-off and was exposing her whole upper body, swinging her empty hands at their pursuers as though she were armed.

Dreadfully, Rainy cried out, "Lara!"

Overly loudly, she shouted back, "Go, I'll cover you!"

But Rainy just sat there--which meant he was just as smart as she hoped he was. The shout was a ruse aimed at the men in black, not an actual command. With their imaging goggles shaking as they ran, she guessed their vision would be too blurry for them to know her hands were empty. The alternative was letting them leap after her into the depression--which would have been a bloody mess. Luckily, her gamble paid off. At their first sight of her, they dived left and right, taking cover--earning her at least a few seconds' respite. At the same time, even while Rainy joined her beneath the edge of the drop-off, she whipped off her knapsack, and dumped in her Idol. In a second, Bean's pistol belt was out and belted around her waist.

After this, she knew, it would be a waiting game. She would wait, pressed beneath the cover the drop-off, for them to send the first sucker across. And then she would swiftly burn through all of her revolvers' pittance of rounds. Bean hadn't reloaded after fighting in the clearing, and she herself had already fired once. There were only seven pursuers (she had counted them by their footfalls), but once they realized her only weapons were Bean's six-guns, their fully-automatic machineguns would start to make them feel mighty empowered. Seven against one, and fewer than eleven rounds against thousands? Even her night-vision advantage couldn't counter those odds. She needed another plan. _Any _plan. That was when that she realized the light level in the cave had gone up. It was a realization that should have struck her earlier--when Rainy had suddenly been able to see.

"Lara," said Rainy, pointing toward the far end of the cavern.

There was a long, straight passage, and at the end was an exit.

There was, literally, light at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

On the raft, Colonel Spaulding regarded his technical advisor dubiously.

"'_Louder_'" queried Colonel Spaulding.

"I don't know what other metaphor to use," Major Leipig explained. "It's electromagnetic resonance, of course, and not sound, but the principle still basically applies. The singularity is making _noise_. Interference on such a scale that the best way I can describe it is in sonic terms. If we could hear it, sir, it would be echoing all around the cave, interfering with itself."

"Why?" asked Spaulding. "Is it something about the cave?"

"I don't know," said the major. "I thought we were losing reception simply because the cave walls were so thick. But the amplitude down here is actually off the scale! It wasn't amplitude we were losing, it was signal cohesion. It's some kind of resonance problem. It's like if you play a note on a piano and it resonates a tuning fork, and that tuning fork resonates another tuning fork , and… "

"I don't understand."

"It's too loud," Leipig said. "It's too distorted to read. The interference is deafening the ILC's receptors. Mr. Corbin's tracking program is based on very subtle pattern differences. The interference is mucking up the benchmarks. We've already dropped from ten-meters of accuracy to less than _fifty_. It won't be long before there'll be a kilometer's worth of places Lara Croft might be hiding in."

"How long do we have?" asked Spaulding.

"It's not the time, it's the distance," Leipig said. "The farther she goes in…"

"Can't you do anything to counteract it?" Spaulding asked.

"No," replied the major. "It's all in the Interlocutor's fine-tuning. I can't touch that. Sir, we should switch to the ILC's basic carrier wave. If you get me that frequency, I can triangulate that."

"No, you can't; there's no carrier wave to track," said Spaulding, too distracted to realize what he'd just said. Or, more importantly, to whom he had just said it.

"But that's impossible," Leipig said, obliviously. "Landez frequencies are too weak at these ranges. Unless you're saying that the ILC and the Interlocutor are both reacting to the same field, the larger Singularity, in which case…"

For the next several seconds, as the wheels in Leipig's head clearly began to spin, apprehensions began to spread over Spaulding's mind like shadows. By suggesting this one seemingly minor technical irregularity, Spaulding had dangled a tantalizing mystery in the face of a man who _thrived _on mysteries. Every single one of the comfortable fictions that the Project had been feeding the Pentagon over the years was in jeopardy--fictions created by people who hadn't had even _half_ the brains of Major-slash-Doctor Jeremy Leipig, Ph.D. Fictions Leipig simply _couldn't _be told. The government didn't even _make_ a security clearance high enough to cover him. Leipig was exploring the fringes of a territory so dangerous that the governments of entire nations, having stood where Leipig stood, wisely turned and walked away. It may have been Spaulding's screw-up to let this explosive cat out of its bag, but Leipig had better be the kind of well-disciplined dog who chooses not to chase after it. If he's not, and it blows up in his face, no one--not Spaulding, not anyone--would be able to protect him. To nip this in the bud, Spaulding knew he would have to pull rank. It would not only be an insult to Leipig's intelligence, but a death sentence, for him not to.

"…So, is that what we're talking about, sir? A harmonic algorithm? Not a--"

Spaulding rudely interrupted, "Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to, Jeremy. And you _don't _want the answers to this one. Stick to the software. If there's a solution, you'll find it there. If there's not, there's none."

* * *

Cavanaugh and Doc had tried to warn Kini, but he hadn't listened.

Cavanaugh had said, "she'll try to trick you into letting down your guard."

Doc had said: "Don't take any chances. The bitch's got _luck_."

But his weapons and his seemingly superhuman night-vision had over-inflated his confidence. That Lara Croft might be able to see in the dark as well as he could simply hadn't occurred to him, it would seem. Frankly, Cavanaugh found it just as amazing as Kini did. By implication (by denigrating them for their reliance on their NODs), Kini had made it clear that all Ingu have excellent night vision. It would seem a unique genetic trait which one would presume no European would share. It was a shock to them all when, after Kini had caved to his blood-lust and had broken his stealth to charge at her, she had not only heard him, but had, apparently, also seen him as well.

Both Doc and Cavanaugh, and all four of Fourth Squad's soldiers, had obediently joined Kini in the chase; but you can't shoot on the run with NODs, and it seemed as though every time they did have a clear shot, Kini's body--dashing so far ahead--was always in the way. Unless someone put her down soon, she would turn around and fight back. This was a disaster in the making. He had seen Bean Hedgebrook's body in the cave, laying there without his pistol belt. After her MP5 ran dry, those would be her weapons of choice. Cavanaugh knew what Lara was carrying, even if she herself didn't. But Kini hadn't listened about that either.

History was about to repeat itself in the worst possible way.

And, ironically, not even Lara knew it yet.

* * *

Lara had sent Rainy running.

It was crunch-time. Light at the end of the tunnel meant that the cavern was about to open up to the mountainside. They couldn't afford this stand-off. The men in black would surely call a fresh helicopter-load of troops to bottle them in. She and Rainy had to be in two places at once: Escaping, and holding these men here. She had sent him out to the coast, to flag down the first boat or airplane. She would cover his escape as best she could, and she would join him there soon.

And she gave him a gun.

The gun was a loan, she had said. She wanted it back, she had said. It was ostensibly for his defense; but, like a traveler who gives her lover her most prized trinket as an assurance of her eventual return, she had only offered it to him to reassure him that she _did_ intend to follow--that her remaining behind wasn't just some grave, suicidal gesture. It only dawned upon her after he had gone that she had seven soldiers to deal with and, at most, six bullets to deal with them with. Join Rainy at the coast? At this point, she didn't even know how she was going to get out of the cave.

She peaked above the edge, and into the darkness.

She saw a shadow budging from cover and scared it back--BANG!--with a shot.

Five shots left.

Rainy was still running in the tunnel, silhouetted against the outside light. He was an easy target--or, rather, _would _be, if Lara let them see him. Another tried to peek out into the space--

BANG!

The would-be surveyor retreated back into the shadows, and Rainy escaped beyond the exit. It was great news for Rainy, but it didn't do much to improve Lara's mood. She had, at most, four shots left. This threatened to be a very short fight. She began to imagine herself gunned to death by five or six men as she leaped over the edge and tried to attack. She also imagined herself turning toward the exit and getting shot in the back trying to run away. Given the choice, she did prefer the former; but she wasn't given the choice in any case. A grenade dropped down beside her. She would have politely returned it to them, but it rolled just out of reach. With no other cover anywhere, Lara leaped over the top of the edge and charged, shooting!

--THREE shots left! TWO!

The grenade exploded behind her, safely deflected by the edge of the depression, and a soldier came out--clearly thinking her wounded--wrong!--BANG!

He went down.

Leaving her exactly one last shot. She would make it point-blank.

She ran at a shadow, aiming--

--BANG!--

But there was no one there.

Then her finger, still squeezing unthinkingly--BANG!--fired a _seventh_ shot.

Had she miscounted? Had Bean's weapons been bored an irregular number of chambers?

She pulled the trigger again. BANG! And again and again--BANG! BANG!

Was it possible?

She turned the barrel at the men in black!

BANG!

She fired five more shots!

BANG!

Ten!

BANG! BANG!

Fifteen! Twenty-five!

BANG!-BANG!-BANG!

As fast as she could shoot!

And the enemy, wisely, stayed hidden from her.

She fired forty more shots.

She fired sixty more shots.

One-hundred more shots!

It didn't make any sense, but she didn't care!

The machinegunners were all pinned down by one young woman and one Colt Thunderer!

Then she heard a howl of frustration and rage building in the tunnel. It was Kini. His fury was taking over. She could feel it burning in the others as well. She could sense it in the motions of the tiny parts of them that she could sometimes see but which would dart back behind cover too fast to shoot. She could sense their coming tactic. Their onslaught.

They came _en masse_: six screaming machineguns ripping wildly through the dark cavern at once, pouring down, converging at Lara, just as she dived back into her depression--where she was followed by one, then two, then a third, and a fourth hand grenade. Several other grenades settled into place on top of the edge, leaving her no cover at all.

Was it bad luck or a clever tactic? It didn't matter.

She heard herself scream

"_shit_"

before her reflexes sent her bolting after Rainy as fast as she could run.

* * *

Lara Croft had discovered Bean Hedgebrook's stolen weapons; and things, as predicted, had gone down from there.

Already, Jones, one of Fourth Squad's men, was down.

Cavanaugh watched him fall and almost came to his aid before he recognized the sounds that he was suddenly hearing. In a flash, almost every soldier had decided to follow Doc's moments-past example and throw a grenade at Croft--to break up her rhythm, if not her body. Realizing the effect so many explosions would have in so small a space, Cavanaugh was then forced to choose between his own life and the off-possibility of helping the wounded man. When the explosions finished ripping through the cavern, the choice he ultimately made left him alive and covering his ears and the other man surely dead.

When the explosions had ended, Cavanaugh leaned cautiously into the chamber, his NOD's seeing only the ever-shifting smoke. There was no way to know if Croft had survived, but Kini was already up and moving. The fanatical native vaulted blindly from the ledge, through the smoke, and he screamed at what he saw.

The others followed quickly, and joined him in his howls.

Croft was alive, having somehow outrun their grenades' ground-zero. She was dashing toward freedom.

Enraged as though by synergy, Doc and Cavanaugh charged with the rest, headlong, into the fray.

* * *

Rainy's feet slowed and stopped, as though by their own will.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

The tunnel had opened, and there was light, but it wasn't the sky.

His dash slowed and halted at an exitway as large and ornate as the one through which he and Lara had entered the cavern system from the valley. He had expected the simple reverse of that experience--that he would walk out into some open, grassy plain. But this was nothing like anything he had ever seen. It was nothing like anything _anyone _had ever seen, so far as Rainy knew. He was standing at the threshold of another cavern, but it was one so large that he couldn't see from one end to the other. It was so large, it had a misty horizon in the distance. And it was illuminated with a sunlight-like ambience which emanated from some inexplicable source beyond the peaks of a mountain range--literally, a _mountain range!_--which occupied the west-most field of his vision. It was only between the peaks of these mountains that light reached through to his part of the cavern.

All around him was a flat plain that was conspicuously a threshold for the entry door through which he had just emerged. To the east was a wall; to the north, a 100-foot rockslide; the south was how he had come; and the west stopped at a terrible precipice before touching the slopes of that incredible mountain range. Below the precipice, at the bottom of a canyon that must have been hundreds of feet deep, he heard the familiar sound of rapid water--probably including another waterfall. The only obvious escape route was toward the north, where the rocks, though piled from floor to ceiling, did not completely obstruct his path. It looked like he could walk along the precipice and around the rock pile. That fact was, that path was the only path available--other than jumping into the canyon and swimming for it.

He was so engrossed in his visual exploration that when Lara screamed his name, he almost missed his queue.

"_Rainy! Cover me!_"

Lara was sprinting up the passage with strides so long that her leg muscles shimmered visibly beneath her skin. The sight of her took him so by surprise that he stood there, dumbly, for almost a full second. It took another moment, after he ducked for cover, to realize what she wanted him to do with the gun he had already forgotten was hanging limply in his hand.

_Rainy!_" insisted the dashing Lara, chastising him as she whipped past him and into a tight circle that landed her against the opposite side of the passageway. In a moment, the two were firing down the tunnel; but Rainy, apparently, wasn't firing even nearly rapidly enough to satisfy the exasperated woman.

"Shoot, damnit!" Lara cursed, but Rainy was distracted: Had she really just fired nine rounds from a six-shooter?

"How many shots these things got--?"

"_Shoot it!_"

Rainy obeyed; and, despite his utter incredulity, the two scattered endless, uncountable rounds, blindly, down the throat of the cave.

* * *

There was a limit to Kini's patience, and he was rapidly approaching it.

He had trained with these men. He had learned to follow their tactics, and had even learned to trust their theories to a certain degree. But the situation, as it was progressing, contradicted every one of their strange notions. Perhaps their tactics had not presumed an enemy with firepower equal to their own. Perhaps it simply had not presumed Lara Croft.

Either way, it was time to break their "rules." It was even, perhaps, time to part with these infidels entirely.

After all, they had done their part: _She_ was in his sights.

As far as Kini was concerned, Spaulding's men, now, could all go to hell.

* * *

Rainy was useless with a gun.

"Shoot!" shouted Lara, "shoot the bloody thing!"

"I am shooting!" cried Rainy, "I'm trying!"

But the men in black were covering one-another and advancing steadily, getting closer and closer. She needed Rainy to shoot at them whenever they tried to cover one-another, but either Rainy couldn't see them, or he didn't want to shoot them, or he simply couldn't tell the ones who were preparing to fire from the ones who were preparing to move from the ones who were doing nothing at all. Lara was becoming frustrated. And she still couldn't see Kini. He was no longer leading them. She was becoming anxious and perturbed.

"Aim the blasted gun!" Lara commanded, but she received only a snivel in return.

"I am," he cried, "I'm trying--I can't--"

In her intense frustration, seeing what was inevitably progressing, she lost control of her impulses and lunged across the doorway to join him. She wanted to control Rainy, to aim for him--or just to whack him over the skull with her pistol grip! She stood behind him and, while still pointing her own weapon, she grabbed his wrist and pointed his gun, too; shouting: "Shoot! Shoot!"

Yet, even then, his finger pulled the trigger off-queue, doing nothing to his target.

Insanely frustrated, she wrapped her hand completely around Rainy's, even pulling his trigger for him. To her own astonishment, all of her shots, from both hands, were actually quite accurate. And effective. She had never attempted two-handed shooting before.

It felt amazingly…

Strangely…

_Familiar_.

"You do it, Lara!" Rainy sobbed, withdrawing his hand completely, "you do it!"

And both weapons came into her hands.

Where she instantly knew they had always belonged.

* * *

Doc and Cavanaugh listened to the weapons, both conventional and X122, their trained ears able to tell the subtle differences between them. They listened to the calls and the screams of the other soldiers, some crying out reports or commands, and others simply crying out. Some screamed in pain, and others in rage. It was the battle in progress just as they had warned it would go:

Badly.

To Doc and Cavanaugh, the surprise had been how well things had _almost_ gone: They had almost pinned her down in the cave. They had almost caught her in a cross-fire. They had almost buried her in grenades. They had almost nailed her in the tunnel. Such happy, nostalgic memories. Now she had Bean Hedgebrook's X122 revolvers in each of her hands, and she was countering them before they could even make a move. Defying the dark, defying the odds, she was standing in the _open_, targeting motion that couldn't possibly have been more than blurriness in the edges of her peripheral vision.

There were limits to what the pride of a man allowed, but she was nailing her targets two-at-a-time, as though her guns were a chameleon's independently articulating eyes. For the moment, mortal fear overrided pride; but this kind of indignity couldn't last. Not when she seemed to be approaching the battle as though it were no more than a paintball match or a video game--with their killed and wounded like scores on a tally sheet. Two good men were already dead. Soon, very soon, Fourth Squad was bound to try something drastic. Doc and Cavanaugh were with them all the way.

But then they realized what Lara, obviously, didn't know.

Lara couldn't see what Kini was doing. From where she stood, in fact, she couldn't see him at all.

Doc and Cavanaugh looked to each other and ducked into position, grinning.

* * *

Lara had a lot of things on her mind and no time to think about them.

First of all were her guns. Her life-saving, miracle-working, God-blessed guns. They felt as much a part of her hands now as her fingers and thumbs. It was weird. It was as though someone had untied the limb she had never known was restrained behind her back. Bean was correct in more ways than he himself had probably realized. There was something truly holy about these weapons, something beyond their miraculous inexhaustibility. She could feel it. She was _attached_ to them.

But that was definitely something for thinking about later. Of more pressing concern were the weapons of her enemies. Her Thunderers weren't the only weapons that were "blessed." The men in black weren't running out of ammunition, either. The implications of the existence of these weapons at all was troubling, but the thought of how they may have come to be possessed by a mercenary deathsquad was terrifying. It was enough to make her not want to think about it at all anymore.

And she wouldn't have to.

All of the men in black came from their hiding places at once and fired at her, and Lara went scrambling from her bold position in the open doorway. It was flattering that they thought they needed all four of their guns just to budge her from the broad, open passage; but flattery wouldn't win them any lenience from her. She whipped back into the open and fought them back anyway. Soon they were right back in their original hiding places. She thought they would try something new, but they then tried the exact same tactic again. Again, she dived clear; but, again, it was an easy exercise to push them right back into hiding. But then they did it again. And again. Had they no learning curve? With endless-rounds weapons in her hands, she could continue this doom-dance forever. Of course, so could they. It was quickly becoming tiresome. But, unless someone did something very different, they were deadlocked.

"Is there anyplace to run?" she asked Rainy, who was still leaning uselessly against the doorway.

"There's a path, it--"

But she didn't care about the details.

"Go!" she said.

She intended to lure the men in black out one-by-one, and she didn't want Rainy there getting shot by them when they came. She'd have enough to worry about defending herself. What she didn't realize, however, was that she had stopped watching the doorway for exactly one half-second too long. The man who should have been her first customer had arrived early and unannounced.

"Lara!" Rainy warned--but, by then, it was too late.

When she saw him so close, she almost failed to react. His weapon slung, his face ladled with a wide grin, he seemed almost non-threatening. By the time she finally did react, it was too late: Kini's huge palm had locked around her slender throat, and she was being lifted from the ground.

Finally, she saw the huge Bowie knife in his other hand.

"No!" shrieked Rainy.

"Qawalynn," said Kini, contemptuously. "_Die_."

Lara's guns were still in her hands, but they were useless none-the-less. Shock made her forget she had them. Her body, however, was better trained. Her knee, reflexively, curled up into her chest and her foot shot outward at Kini's knife hand, halting his stab. Her other leg also moved. She punted at his groin and then stomp-kicked his chest--twice--freeing herself. She dive-rolled to the ground and came up defiantly, ready to shoot:

"_Fuck you!_"

But another soldier had joined Kini by then, and as quickly as her guns had come up, she went rolling sideways, just clear of a barrage of endless-style rounds. Her barrels aimed themselves with a vengeance this time, rising out of her tumble even before she did. She hit one of the men in black--not Kini, unfortunately--and drove both back into the cave.

Lara fired, and fired, and fired, acutely aware that it was her only defense now. Were they to coordinate themselves into another cover-salvo and return-fire all at once, she would have no place to hide. She had to keep them back behind the doorway's edge, at least until she had caught up with Rainy, who was already halfway to the 100-foot rockslide that was the only cover in sight.

When the men in black finally did make an attempt at coordinated fire, it was just barely too late-- Lara and Rainy were safely out of range.

* * *

Jeremy Leipig was not a stupid man. Well beyond his Ph.D in electrical engineering, he was an expert in human nature. He knew when he was being misled. What he didn't understand was _why_. By its definition, a black project is full of secrets; but he possessed all of the nation's top clearances. He was one of the Project's chief software developers. The idea that the problem with Jake Corbin's tracking program was 'software' was, first of all, overly simplistic; but was also in itself so implausible as to be an insult to every engineer involved, including Leipig himself. But too much was at stake--for Spaulding more than anyone. It seemed to Leipig that the problem wasn't that Spaulding was trying to hide something from him, but rather that he was trying to prevent him from attempting to access rear-echelon resources, the record of which could be misconstrued by the Pentagon as evidence that Spaulding himself might be dropping the ball out there. Leipig knew that Spaulding misunderstood the tracking program's problems, and he respected the man too much to allow his pride to get in the way of his mission. The problem had a simple solution. All he needed was a technical blueprint of the Interlocutor which included its internal operational frequencies--which Corbin had amplified to increase the operating range between the Interlocutor and the ILC. The provisions of Leipig's own clearances would not ordinarily grant him access to those files, but there were ways around such obstacles. He was no Rainy Hedgebrook, but he did have _some _skills. Enough to get in and out without leaving any fingerprints. Enough to avoid implicating Spaulding, himself, or anyone else.

He accessed the internet by patching his radio through their helicopter's satellite uplink, and it wasn't long before he was enjoying the full contents of the Project's Pentagon files. Spaulding, meanwhile, though less than four feet away, was none the wiser. Leipig thought it best to keep him out of it. He wasn't digging much deeper than his usual domain, but misusing even one clearance was grounds for a court-martial. He would risk no one else. This would be a short visit. He would be in and out. He only needed a frequency: Just one stupid little number.

And there shouldn't be very many files to search through.

There shouldn't have been as many as there were.

There shouldn't have been anywhere _near _this many.

He gulped, and opened the first file folder.

The contents spilled across his screen in a horrifying flash.

It wasn't the Interlocutor or the ILC.

It was their weapons. The MP5s they were carrying, and many, many, other types of weapons. For the first time in Leipig's many years of Black-Ops service, his job was making his stomach churn. He had been led to believe that they had borrowed the X122's from some neighboring lab. There shouldn't have been any mention of them in the Project's files. Not in _his_ project's files. Not in the Tombraider Project. Not on the same page as the Interlocutor and the ILC. Not as neighboring columns in the same data tables. But there they were--there but for the Grace of God! And it appeared the X122's were just the tip of the iceberg. The files described vehicle-mounted weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, even heavy artillery. The implications were flabbergasting. They had developed it all, somehow, from Landez 'radio'.

Reading the page made his blood run cold.

For a moment, he forgot where he was. Who he was with.

"Major," said the colonel.

Leipig's heart skipped a beat.

But Spaulding, clearly, was oblivious to Leipig's distress. He would appear to be more interested in the chatter coming over the radio--to which Leipig would already have been privy had he not been using his own radio as a modem. Leipig could hear the other soldiers shouting and screaming upstream. He noticed that the waters up there were getting louder and louder. And angrier and angrier. Spaulding summed it up nicely:

"Better bundle your toys. We're about to get wet again."


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Threshold

"_How much time will it take_

_Till I know how much longer?_

_How many beatings do I take_"_We have come from ashes_

_Till I know I'm stronger? Of the burning away_

_How much space will it take Pouring blood on the fire_

_Till I know where I am? Of the alter of pain_

_How many times do I have to do Led into temptation_

_Till I know I can..? Now the black gods align_

_How much further do I have to go Here there is no salvation_

_Before I know I'm there? And your blood is my wine_

_How many tears do I have to shed Here's a world that is waiting_

_Before I show I care? Between the living and the dead_

_How much brightness can I stand All is for the taking_

_Before I see the light? For a life or a lie_

_How many wrongs do I have to do At the end of the breaking_

_Before I get it right..?" I'll be watching you die_

_By their anger and fury_

**--Flotsam & Jetsam. **_The strong will survive._"

**--Manowar.**

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN:** **"**Threshold.**"**

The river, hundreds of feet below his toes, was like an aerial photo: A mere blue line.

At the start, Rainy's path around the rockslide had been ten feet wide, but it had gradually narrowed into a ledge barely wide enough to inch along--a mere eight-inch outcropping. Yet it remained preferable to the open plain he'd left behind, where bullets still freely impacted the rockslide's southern face.

At first he wasn't afraid. After all, the river looked fake. Like a model landscape for an electric train. The rest of place being a subterranean cavern, nothing seemed real. Fear found him only gradually, building with distance, as he inched along; hugging the wall at his back, looking down. He could see where the river emerged from the south; from his left, from a falls. He could see where the river was headed; the same direction as he, toward the right, into the northwest, where it vanished into what seemed a canyon-gateway into an alternate dimension of light, mist, and mystery--a view that could almost be called beautiful, were it not so utterly overwhelming. He kept wondering when he would awaken from this bizarre dream. He listened to his heart, and to his lungs, and to his pursuers' machineguns in the distance, and he inched.

He was listening to the bark of one weapon in particular when he realized it wasn't as distant as he had at first hoped. It was coming around to him, catching up. He had just begun to inch more quickly, more dangerously, along the ledge when he realized it wasn't a machinegun barrel poking around the bend after him, but a dainty little hand and an ancient frontier-style six-gun.

"Lara!"

"Keep moving!" Lara cried back.

She was strafing along the ledge more quickly and confidently than Rainy would ever dare. Her arms were extended spread-eagle, pressed against the walls, and her left revolver constantly spattered shots across her wake. There were no targets in view; but, Rainy reasoned, that was her whole strategy: Not to hit them, but to scare them back. It was a nightmarish thought: What would happen should a fire-fight occur with both parties on that same narrow, indefensible ledge? Her shots, and the sparks they cast, were to remind their pursuers what happens when the duck in the barrel can shoot back.

"Move it, move!" Lara cried, gently pushing at Rainy with the grip of her right hand's weapon.

"Where?" moaned Rainy, inching as quickly as he could, looking at Lara.

Lara glanced at him, and then over his head.

"_There_," she said.

Rainy turned again to the north.

Lara's haste had brought them into view of something even more surprising than the mystery light and the mystery land that lay beyond it. Farther along the canyon wall, presumably at their altitude, there was a covered-bridge spanning the precipice! Though it was built upon a natural arch that bridged the canyon, it had two breeze-through windows and a tile roof. It was clearly man-made.

"What the hell is this place?" Rainy wondered.

"I don't know," Lara replied.

And suddenly she stopped firing.

"What?"

"Shhh!"

She canted her head and averted her eyes. He knew this just meant that she was listening carefully, but he couldn't shake the feeling that she was tuning-in some kind of superhuman psychic power. Rainy hated when she behaved this way. She always did next what she suddenly did next.

"Go," she said, gently shoving his shoulder. "Go! I'll catch up."

"What?" gasped Rainy. "Where are you going? Lara! Where are you going?"

But she was already off--_upward_.

* * *

Doc and Cavanaugh stepped out into the vast, illuminated cavern, removing their now-unnecessary NODs from their faces.

Cavanaugh set straight to checking the condition of their fallen men. The two were Rodriguez and Van Buren. He shook his head and sighed. Neither had a pulse. He rejoined Doc at the cavern's entrance.

"They're gone," Cavanaugh said. He was disgusted at both the fact of their deaths and at everyone else's seeming indifference to it. He had watched Kini, as well as the two who remained of Fourth Squad, charge right by their fallen men a moment before, seeming to pretend they didn't exist.

"What the fuck?" hissed Doc. He was half examining the human-architectured doorway and half viewing the sunrise-like light that burned in the far west. "Man, what kind of fucking place is this?"

"I don't know," replied Cavanaugh, rubbing the texture of the doorway's chiseled stone.

Suddenly the gunshots in the chamber ended with an ominous echo. They saw Taylor and Ali backing away from the path between the foot of the giant rockslide and the cliff at the western edge. They would appear to be in a state of tactical retreat. At first Cavanaugh presumed the 'tactic' of their retreat was to preserve themselves by letting their enemies go--but then he noticed what Kini was doing.

He was climbing up the rockslide.

_Fast_.

* * *

Her first few finger-holds were meager at best, and her toe-holds were practically non-existent.

If Lara had been a less experienced climber--and a less tough one--she would probably not have been able to climb past the first several feet of the wall. However, she knew how to find patent groves in the rock by touch alone, and she had fingertips that were narrow enough to be anchors and strong enough to support her entire body weight. Even though she was unable to use her legs in any but a cursory way at first, she was, in the end, able to pull herself over the steepest part of the face and dig her hands and toes into the more accessible fissures that were available higher up. Once stabilized, she began to climb as she might have climbed any slope: quickly, deliberately, and aggressively.

Despite the dizzying view she saw when she glanced over her shoulder, it wasn't her precarious height that most worried her. It was the fact that her two revolvers were holstered at her hips, beyond her reach. She looked down to where Rainy was still inching north along the ledge. If she were right about what the men in black were trying to do, without lightning-access to her weapons, Rainy would be helpless.

Unless she could beat them to the top.

* * *

"The hell's going on?" demanded Doc as he and Cavanaugh arrived, planting their backs against the wall beside Lieutenant Taylor.

"Ali, go!" said Taylor, slapping Ali on the shoulder and sending him scrambling onto the path around the rockslide.

"What's he doing?" Cavanaugh demanded, but he didn't mean Ali. Both he and Doc were gazing up at Kini--who was high on the rocks above their heads and was about to disappear over the peak.

"Switch to seventy-two!" snapped Lieutenant Taylor, obviously chastising him for failing to monitor the squad's frequency.

Cavanaugh switched his radio setting and heard:

"_--closing on them. Coming into sight now…_"

It was Ali.

Cavanaugh understood. They had been trying to buy time for Kini to climb the south face and establish a sniper-post. Now Ali was herding them into the kill zone--Kini's waiting sniper-sights.

"_Wait one!_" Ali's voice suddenly interjected. "_He's alone. What the fuck? Where'd she go?_"

"You hear that, Kini?" asked Taylor.

Kini's voice chuckled coldly.

"_Yes, I hear._"

* * *

Rainy was close enough to see that the walls of the covered bridge were built of ornately carved bricks, and its roof was an arrangement of clay tiles. It seemed a typical example of ancient native architecture, but it was in better condition than any ruin he had ever seen. He was looking forward to reaching it--to getting off of his tiny perch and running across it to the apparently open ground on the other side--but he hesitated. He wasn't prepared for what he found at the end of the ledge.

The path around rockslide opened up into another clearing--the walls of which had been shaped into the form of an elaborately decorated amphitheater. Its rows of bleacher-like steps had been carved directly from the ridge that wound about its circumference. It was at least a hundred feet across, and could seat, perhaps, four-hundred people at once. It was centered around the bridge, as though the bridge were the centerpiece of whatever reverent ceremonies were performed there.

Rainy gazed at the amphitheater--and past it.

The amphitheater itself was incredible, but it was inconsequential against what Rainy could see beyond it. Farther north, past the peaks, over the arc of the ridgeline and the bleachers built into it, there was an even greater chamber. Off seemingly endlessly to the north and west, there was an entire underworld world.

It was unbelievable.

The glistening of the west-born sunlight diffracted into spectacular colors as it passed into the heavy mist that was rising all throughout the airy space. Running water flowed from gaps in the ceiling and blanketed every visible wall of the main chamber, flowing down into whatever secret places were below his vantage, blocked by the amphitheater's far ridge. The walls of water wound around into the distance and vanished from sight, consumed by their own mists.

He felt suddenly compelled to stay a moment in the amphitheater--to explore. To climb those northern bleachers, and that ridgetop, and look out into the incredible universe he was only just verging upon. Compelled, even, to play.

But a frightening voice returned him to his senses.

"Hey, Rainy..."

It was Ali. Rainy remembered him from a year before, when they had first set up the remote site. He was a serious man. Driven. A little edgy. Rainy remembered him best for how he less looked at you than _through_ you--seeing only how your life might advantage his own. When he heard that arrogant, intelligent voice, it made his heart leap. He sprang from the ledge and into the amphitheater's open arena, hearing Ali's shots explode across the corner in his wake.

* * *

"_He's on his way out, look sharp!_" whispered Ali's voice in Kini's ear.

Kini fired three shots, aiming lethally.

* * *

Ali was still inching along the ledge when he heard Kini's sniper shots. He was about to hurry forward and investigate the aftermath when a pebble landed on his shoulder.

"What the hell..?"

He looked up.

"Fuck!" he cursed, and he turned his machinegun skyward.

* * *

Kini's first shot peeled out--almost on target. He had been belly down in his firing position at the peak of the 100-foot rockslide when Lara had arrived, grabbing his barrel. He fired only a fraction of a second after her dainty white hand had grabbed his barrel and had shoved it off-target. He fired two more shots randomly while he drew his knife and slashed at her.

But his knife-hand got stuck against his own gun barrel. It took him a moment to realize that she had grabbed his fingers and was using the barrel to enforce a hasty wrist-lock. But she was a tender little thing, and he was a mighty brute. He yanked away from her hard; knowing she--try though she might--could never resist.

And Kini had to admit his surprise when she didn't even _try _to resist. Instead, she cleverly harnessed his brute strength and used him to boost herself fully up into his sniper-perch, where she immediately took the higher ground. She probably imagined this would give her some sort of advantage. In reality, it only increased his options. He chose simply to continue firing his weapon --since her clumsy arrival had placed her whole body on the wrong side of the barrel.

Kini cackled with laughter at the hapless woman while she flailed to get the flaming nozzle away from her face.

* * *

Rainy went down.

Feeling the round neatly parting his hair, the strength in his legs abandoned him. He fell straight backward and watched the next few rounds impacting the ground just in front of him--killing the ghost-Rainy he imagined was still stupidly trying to run through the arena. On his hands and knees, he scrambled back to the north face, trembling, thinking about Ali.

Ali was still on the ledge, but he could emerge into the amphitheater at any moment.

* * *

"Let's go!" shouted Taylor--and he charged onto the ledge, followed by Doc and Cavanaugh.

* * *

Ali's shots just missed her climbing body. She had somehow disappeared over the clifftop just quickly enough to evade him. Ali cursed and spat, hearing Kini and Lara Croft at war--hearing Kini's weapon blasting carelessly, punctuating the action.

Knowing he could nothing more about her, he resumed his pursuit after Rainy.

* * *

Rainy was terrified.

Pressing his back to the wall, his chest heaving, his head darted left and straight, left and straight.

Left: To the corner where the northern face and the ledge intersected, where Ali could appear at any second.

Straight: to where he could see the bridge jutting west from the middle of the cliff-side.

He was paralyzed thinking about the sniper overhead, who he knew was just waiting for him to make another foolish move.

He itched to jump and run.

He needed a sign: Where to go? What to do?

He needed a sign!

He got it:

"_Go, Rainy!_"

* * *

"_Go, Rainy!_"

Lara screamed it at the top of her lungs--making use of the brief pause she had earned when she had leaped to her feet, dragging Kini's weapon and Kini's locked hands up with her. It took Kini a moment to follow her upright, during which time she had made the choice between striking harder at him, or alerting her companion below.

She had anticipated that there would be a price to pay, and indeed there was.

Once standing, Lara could see how the ridge upon which she stood hovered high, behind, and around a new clearing--carving out the shape of an amphitheater. She could see how the slopes that descended westerly cut steeply downward until they became a sheer drop to the bleachers. The slopes descending easterly led into a ravine flowing with water from the main chamber's eastern waterfalls--eastern waterfalls that merged with northern waterfalls which led into western waterfalls and vanished into the vastly distant mists. In the middle of all this water was a world of inexplicable detail, color, and fragrance.

Her brief glance tempted her; and, delinquently, she hoped for a better view. She got one.

The instant she had spent warning Rainy and filling her eyes with shape of the eastern formations gave Kini the chance he needed to strike back. His steel-toed boot punted upward with the force of his entire body. It ripped into her abdomen and lifted her from the ground. She doubled over in the air and flew backward over the cliff.

She splashed down into currents of the ravine a few moments later.

* * *

Rainy heard Lara's word 'go' and responded reflexively, launching himself from the wall. He charged through the clearing, headlong--sensing that Ali was just behind.

He was right.

Bullets ripped after Rainy an instant later, but Rainy was fast--fueled by terror and determination. Though Ali screamed at both Rainy (demanding acquiescence) and his own cohorts (demanding assistance), Rainy never hesitated. He escaped to the bridge, ignoring Ali's bullets--which never stopped heating the air around his head, neck, and arms. He dashed across the echoey, trembling bridge, never slowing.

* * *

Kini growled while kicking her, and gleefully watched her fly and fall.

He stood an instant later at the cliff's edge, his attentions torn between his sniper target, the little boy, and the hate-fest he was enjoying watching Lara Croft falling helplessly, bouncing from slope to slope, on her way down to the glistening fissure between the ridge and the water-spilling eastern wall. He could have _handed _the boy to Spaulding's men--he had a clear and easy shot--but his true quarry was gaining control of herself in the water. She was too vague and too far away to shoot, but she was obviously still alive. They were screaming in his radio for him to shoot Rainy, but he took the radio off and tossed it away.

If she could survive such a fall, so could he.

Kini leaped into the crevice after Lara Croft.

* * *

Ali arrived in the clearing just in time to see the little brat rushing into the covered bridge.

He cursed and fired, dashing from the ledge and trying to chase him down--trying to put rounds between him and the entry way. But it was too late, and his first misaligned bursts struck the bridge instead of the boy running into it. By the time he managed to adjust his fire, Rainy was gone.

Ali cursed the boy viciously, screaming back to Taylor, Doc, and Cavanaugh, who were still on the cliff. He screamed out at Kini--who was either a terrible shot or wasn't even trying.

The boy flew across the bridge, and Ali flew after him.

* * *

Rainy exited the bridge without looking back, and only barely looking forward.

It was only when his legs had become fatigued and his breath haggard and inadequate that he thought to look around. He was running steeply uphill, and hadn't realized it until he had nearly reached the top of a ridge. Looming ahead, he could see the mountain slopes that blocked off most of the western light. The range was far more distant than he had suspected it was. Beneath his feet were merely its foothills. Its slopes lay beyond a man-made terrace, carved at the mountain's base, at the bottom of the valley before him. At the sight of it, he stopped running--half from exhaustion and half from sheer wonder. But the pause was brief.

If Rainy had seen the structures he saw along the foot of those mountains even a day before, it might have caused him to stand there longer--in amazement. It might have cost him his life. But, given everything else he had already seen that day, this sight was nothing more than another backdrop.

Something to run into.

Hopefully, someplace to hide.

* * *

"Ali, wait!" shouted Taylor, but Ali had already run across the bridge, chasing Rainy.

The moment Taylor, Cavanaugh, and Doc arrived in the amphitheater, their attentions were divided. Taylor screamed out after his man, Ali, and made a start in that direction--itching to follow; but Cavanaugh paused, in awe of the place. Doc, meanwhile, began maneuvering about the open space, clearly looking for a vantage from which he might assist Kini against Croft. After a moment, all three found themselves joining Doc: Lara Croft's body was hurtling from the clifftop, down and behind the amphitheater's impassible eastern ridge. Kini himself leaped after her, following; and suddenly Ali's angry complaints seemed louder in their headsets:

"_I'm right on him! I'm right on him!_" Ali's voice said.

Croft was gone. All they had left now was Rainy.

"Get and hold him!" transmitted Taylor.

"Think he killed her?" asked Cavanaugh.

"God, I hope so," said Doc.

"Come on, guys," interjected Taylor, starting for the bridging. "Nothing we can do about it anyway."

The three jogged across.

Midway, however, Cavanaugh slowed. He paused at one of the breeze-through windows and gazed out, surveying the canyon below. It was an incredible view.

"Can you believe this fucking place?" he mused quietly, shaking his head.

"Come on, Cavanaugh," said Doc, pausing at the exit. "We can sight-see later."

Taylor walked over and took a hold of Cavanaugh's sleeve.

"Let's go, man," he said, gently. "Ali's waiting."

"Yeah," Cavanaugh conceded, leaning back from the window and moving for the exit.

"_Where the fuck are you?_" shouted Ali's angry voice in their headsets.

Taylor had been right behind Cavanaugh; but he paused, unthinkingly, for his own view through the window.

"Ali?" said Taylor, "what's your loca--"

But suddenly his balance shifted. He stumbled slightly.

"Hey! What the--?" he stammered--but then the floor tiles fell fully from beneath his feet.

It exploded outward like a domino-effect. The five-foot blocks dropped away, one by one, exposing the horrible view of the canyon floor, hundreds of feet below.

Doc responded before anyone, grabbing Cavanaugh and throwing himself backwards. They were on the solid western bank just in time to avoid being dragged down. But the desperate lieutenant was left clinging futilely to the rounded face of the window sill he had been gazing through--held in place by the moisture of his open palms alone. He slipped an inch at a time. An inch at a time.

"Help me!" he screamed.

But the two men on the bank were, tragically, at a loss for options.

"Don't let me die!" Taylor cried.

"Hang on!" Cavanaugh shouted, grabbing Doc's shoulders. "We need a rope! You still have that rope?"

Taylor slipped another inch.

"Ali!" Taylor screamed into his radio. "Ali's got the rope! Ali! Help me!"

All together, the men screamed: "_Ali!_"

But Ali returned too late, and all the three could do was watch while the caverns claimed another of their friends' helpless lives.

* * *

The drop, from his sniper perch to the next peak along the ridge, was a very long fall.

Kini arched his body expertly as he fell the twenty or thirty vertical feet. Clutching his weapon, he tucked instantly upon impact and spilled resistlessly down the western slope. His body stayed tucked and rolled the first several meters of his tumble, his arms and legs not daring to project from the avalanche he had singly become.

But when his body had slowed enough, he exploded from his tightly tucked posture and into a dash, running a path almost parallel to the ridge above him, angling down. He leaped over rises and depressions in the western slope before him, knowing he couldn't slow or make any mistake whatever without sending himself plunging headlong into the unforgiving rock.

His legs bounded over every shadowy obstacle that appeared before him--shadowed as everything was by the ridge looming above. The western light seemed to loom farther and farther distant the more deeply Kini descended into the ravine. Soon, every bit of the western light was blocked off--save the rainbow refracting from eastern wall's thin but pervasive waterfall. The foamy effervescence glistened magnificently with oranges and darkling reds and blues, and was ruined only by the hated beige of the cursed woman--whose soaked clothing absorbed more than its share of the spectrum. Lara Croft was bobbing in the shallow ravine, stroking uselessly. Luckily, Kini could run faster than any fool woman could swim. He ran alongside her, and he opened fire.

She could hear the shots but she couldn't tell right away where they were coming from, thanks to the interfering echoes of the high-walled canyon. Finally, however, she looked his way--terrified and helpless, waiting to die.

Kini smiled at her and closed the gap.

But, what Kini hadn't yet noticed was how the ravine was widening, opening up into a broad, flat basin, and filling with the western light. Lara Croft, however, apparently did. The widening basin enlarged the ravine, making it shallower. She leaped to her feet, and into a dash--just as fast and straight as Kini's. She pointed her revolvers at him and fired and ran.

Kini almost fell, losing his aim. Chagrined, he nearly tripped on his own feet. He kept firing though, however wildly; reflexively dodging the shots impacting all around him. But by the time he regained control of himself, the steep eastern slope had exploded open to the north, and he found himself unexpectedly past the mouth of the draw. He was dashing into an open space where a vast lagoon of crystal blue water lay visible below and all around him.

He wanted to look west and see what the green things were that beckoned in that direction, but his mind was captured northeast. He saw the great waterfalls extending endlessly along the walls. He saw Lara Croft dashing; splashing through her ankle-deep stream, the slope of her ravine turning steeper and steeper beneath her--until it turned almost vertical. She launched herself into an athletically perfect, elegant, gracefully executed swan-dive, vanishing into the pearly blue depths.

She was gone before Kini could make himself look away--to where he himself was headed. His part of the lagoon was filled with giant, bone-crushing rocks. When his slope dropped out from under him, and his eyes went wide, and he fell as Lara Croft had fallen, he didn't execute a dive.

All he did was scream.

* * *

Ali could hear it all.

Taylor was dying; falling toward oblivion.

Taylor's radio remained active throughout; transmitting his screams, his prayers, his death. Ali could hear it when the water at the bottom of the three-hundred-foot canyon crushed his body and then consumed him, but he would arrive too late to see. He ran into the brick wall of the covered bridge, where Doc and Cavanaugh both were, and gazed awfully over the bottomless threshold.

"God!" Ali gasped, gaping incredulously at the bridge's treacherous, floorless, insides. "What happened?"

"This god-forsaken place!" Doc growled, cursing the entire cavern.

"Fuck!" Ali cursed, reporting: "There's another structure over the hill."

"I'm calling it in," said Cavanaugh, switching his radio back to the colonel's frequency.

"There's no time!" shouted Ali, turning to run away.

"We need reinforcements," Cavanaugh insisted, grabbing Ali's black sleeve.

"He's only a kid--" snapped Ali, "he's getting away!"

"We'll wait!" Cavanaugh commanded. "We're going to be more careful from now on. We don't know what we're getting into!"

"Well, who the fuck put you in charge?" snapped Ali, breaking away from his grasp. "I'm next in command!"

"For Fourth Squad," replied Cavanaugh, his tone implying something he dared not say directly.

"Yeah, for _Fourth_ Squad!" replied Ali, confronting Cavanaugh's cowardly obliqueness.

"Wake up, Ali!" snapped Doc. "There ain't no 'Fourth Squad' no more, man!"

It appeared that Doc was on Cavanaugh's side. It didn't matter.

"Yeah?" said Ali, "Well, you two can stand here and argue about it. I'm gonna take it out of that kid's ass!"

Before he was even finished saying it, Ali was already running back over the hill, chasing Rainy.

"Fucking idiot," cursed Cavanaugh solemnly, shaking his head.

"Maybe he's right," said Doc, a moment later.

"Like hell he is," hissed Cavanaugh.

"You gonna call it in?"

"Yeah," said Cavanaugh, begrudgingly, beginning to trot, following Ali up the hill, "on the fly."

* * *

Rainy didn't have time to appraise the scenery. He simply ran across it, and into it.

The floor of the entire valley, between the eastern plateau and the western barrier mountains, was a huge terrace; paved with expertly sculpted, gleaming white tiles. It was a courtyard of some ancient kind. Its northern and southern edges were enclosed by the mountain's feet, excluding all avenues of approach save Rainy's east. Once upon the terrace, the only direction to run was into the base of the western barrier mountain, which had been elaborately carved and embossed at its base so as to appear to be a single-storied structure, with the rest of the mountain growing from its roof. Its façade had dozens of pillars, and dozens of open doorways in-between them--like an entrance to a coliseum. It was a grand threshold. It had the air of a gateway between realms. And, with its three marble steps, which connected it to the terrace along the valley's full north-south length, it projected an undeniable allure. Rainy had no time to pause and consider his options in any case--he couldn't see any obvious way to run around the structure, and the passages were actually fairly well lit inside--almost as though by artificial light.

Without pausing, he bounded over the threshold stairs and entered the building.

* * *

Ali was through with tactics. Through with rules. Through with games.

He had turned his radio off, sick of listening to Cavanaugh's incessant banter. He thought about Kang. About Taylor. He thought about being all there was left of Fourth Squad. Men he'd been with for the better part of five years. The best men he had ever known. Gone.

He seethed.

Everyone in Fourth Squad had been top-notch. They had been the best. They had been a team. A real family. Their squad's ideas for incorporating the Project's new technologies into real-world fighting tactics had been the best in the Operations Force. On the training ground, Fourth Squad had roasted every other squad a dozen times over.

Ali had dreamed of leading Fourth Squad into battle. Not against a little girl and a littler boy, but against real armies. Real terrorists. Real opposition. He couldn't wait to see their training and experience put to the test. When Corbin had spoken about the day when they would expand the Force, adding new platoons, creating entire battalions, he implied that the leaders for his dream-force would come from the existing ranks--and Ali knew he was talking about Fourth Squad's ranks. More than from any other squad, Fourth Squad would have provided Corbin his captains and his colonels. And at the core of his being, Akim Ali knew that when the final assignments would have been made, he himself would have been high in the chain of command.

It would have been a glorious, glorious future.

But it had been erased--simply cut off from him.

Like a healthy limb that had been amputated by mistake.

Ali visualized the bloody faces of the two cleaver-wielding amputuers. One was Lara Croft, and the other was Rainy Hedgebrook. The first one was someplace else; hopefully dying, but out of his reach in any case. The other one was right there--just past the hilltop--and helpless without the other to protect him.

Fantasizing about the things he was going to do to Rainy Hedgebrook made his mouth water.

Rainy was going to wish he had never been born.

* * *

Inside of the tunnel, everything was polished smooth and perfectly white.

All of the structure's tunnels had been the same--long, straight, smooth, and open. Before selecting one, Rainy had glanced into several, hoping to find one with some discernible advantage over the others. He had been hoping to find outcroppings or indentations or some other features behind which he might have been able to hide. But each tunnel had been the same: A long, descending passage with a twelve foot-high ceiling, a fifteen-foot-wide floor, and an inexplicable illumination.

The light was coming from everywhere and yet, seemingly, from nowhere. It made no sense. He expected that, the farther he descended, the darker the passage would become. Instead, the illumination remained uniform throughout. It was as though the walls themselves were subtly aglow.

No, not 'as though.'

There was no doubt in his mind. Though the white stone walls looked no different than the concrete walls of any hospital or school, the floor here was not as dark as it would be under florescent lights, and the ceiling was not as comparatively bright. Instead, everything had a sickly, even-toned whiteness--and a complete lack of shadows. It was giving Rainy vertigo.

But a mild case of nausea was the least of his worries. With the tunnels so long and so straight and so perfectly illuminated, he would have made an extremely easy target if one of the soldiers were to enter after him. His only hope was that his pursuers would take one of the other tunnels.

His trapped, frantic mind began to fantasize about all of the places the various tunnels might lead. He pictured his own tunnel leading him out into the fresh seaside air, where a Coast Guard ship would be waiting to rescue him. He pictured his pursuers' tunnels leading them into a labyrinth of endlessly twisting passageways, full of dangers and traps, ending at a cove full of man-eating dragons. The image was vivid and satisfying.

But where his tunnel actually lead was to a large underground room; a hundred feet across, from east to west. It seemed endlessly wide from north to south. Every entrance above emptied out along this one chamber's eastern wall. In terror, Rainy suddenly realized that when his pursuers arrived--in a few seconds--they would instantly see him! Unless he continued to the west, where a corresponding number of passageways exited _out _of this chamber.

He dashed toward one--and almost plummeted to the bottom of a dry reservoir.

They were the size of swimming pools; and, while many were filled with clear water, many were dry--such as the one Rainy failed to see before stepping right into it. After leaping far enough across it to catch the wall on its perpendicular edge, Rainy looked over his shoulder in amazement. He was hanging on the side of a reservoir that was more than fifty feet across, thirty feet wide, and a profoundly troubling forty feet deep--high enough to have killed him had he failed to catch himself. Rainy felt like an idiot for having not seen it before falling into it, and he thanked his fickle gods for the dumb luck of having tripped into it near one of its corners rather than the middle of one of its broad flanks.

Still, there was the immediate task of pulling himself out; and that boded to be difficult, as the floor was smooth had no tiles nor anything else for hand-holds. Also, the rim was very sharp. It was difficult to hold himself in place, let alone climb up. His first attempts to pull himself out failed--and his next attempt came too late.

Ali had already caught up.

* * *

Ali burst into the chamber, his weapon at his cheek. His sights went every direction he looked. It was, admittedly, a little silly to be this cautious against an unarmed eleven-year-old boy, but he wanted to be sure that his first sight of Rainy Hedgebrook would result in a successful wounding shot. He didn't want him to get away again.

He had no intention of killing Rainy. Not right away. He had a knife, and a rope, and a packet of heavy rubber bands with which he wanted to acquaint the little bastard. It would be hours before anyone caught up to them in their cavern hideaway. By then he would be finished, the body would be disposed of, and he could tell the colonel any excuse he pleased. In any case, even if the colonel learned the truth, he would surely understand. Even Doc and Cavanaugh would understand--or, at the very least, they wouldn't interfere. There was honor to consider. Not even Cavanaugh would deny him this.

But first he had to catch the little fucker.

He moved into the chamber as swiftly and silently as he could. He moved smoothly into the middle of the chamber and systematically explored its visible space, dwelling on no feature longer than the time it took pass his eyes and his gunsights smoothly across it. He noted the glimmering water of the swimming pool near his feet; the open, west-going passages to his front; and the chamber's seemingly endless expanses to his right and left.

He didn't know what any of these features meant--what purpose they might serve--and he didn't care. He performed several smooth, methodical visual searches of the chamber before concluding that Rainy hadn't stopped there. Noting the chamber's many exits, he presumed that Rainy had continued on. So, he tip-toed between the banks of the swimming pools, and moved swiftly out.

* * *

"No," said Cavanaugh into the radio, "we've heard nothing yet. But I can guarantee you, if she did survive, she won't get across that bridge."

Cavanaugh and Doc hurried down the long tunnel, following Ali. Cavanaugh was finishing his report to the colonel; the colonel having already explained the next bizarre phase of their plans. He, clearly, had been hoping to hear that Lara Croft had been captured or killed, and that the ILC had been reclaimed. He did not want to have to perform this next phase if he didn't have to.

"But we are still hot on the Hedgebrook boy," Cavanaugh said, reassuringly. "I expect we'll have him in custody in a few minutes."

They neared the end of the tunnel, and Doc moved ahead.

"Whoa, Cav!" said Doc as they entering the chamber.

"I'll keep...you..." murmured Cavanaugh, awestruck by the chamber's size and mystery, "...informed..."

Doc groaned, surveying the chamber, north and south, with a rapid of turn of his head. Every entrance had a reservoir pool in front of it--some full, some empty--and every entrance had a corresponding out-going tunnel, leading away. In its elegance, its simplicity, and its enigmatic but unmistakable intelligence, there was an intense creepiness about it that gave both men goosebumps.

"What in the fuck is all of this?" Doc asked.

"I don't know..." Cavanaugh replied.

He trotted into the chamber and kneeled before one of the water-filled reservoirs. The water was crystalline and shimmering. He lifted a handful to his mouth, and the taste was pure and delicious. He looked up from there and surveyed the western exits. He noted that most were open and clear, but there were a few that were grated shut and dark inside. It took him a moment deduce what that might mean. By then, Ali was mindlessly walking into one.

"Wait up, Ali!" Cavanaugh called.

"We gotta stick together," added Doc--not realizing what Cavanaugh had just realized.

"Stick together all you want," snapped back Ali, descending into the tunnel, "I'm getting mine."

Cavanaugh was about explain himself when a thundering disruption rippled through the reservoir before him. A bubble the size of compact car ripped up to the surface and exploded loudly in the air, sending droplets in all directions. He leaped to his feet and realized what the noise and commotion had just distracted him from.

Doc was already at the west exit--desperately trying to help.

A metal grate had fallen behind Ali, trapping him in the westward tunnel. Taken completely off guard, he was panicking; uselessly trying to lift the metal bars. Ali gaped at Cavanaugh and Doc like a convicted but innocent prisoner from within his holding cell.

A dozen fanciful terrors itched at Cavanaugh's imagination: Ali's passage to the west had been sealed off as well, and he was trapped in a segment of tunnel sealed between two grated barriers. The Fourth Squad soldier was pounding at the bars, and shaking and pulling at them; but they may as well have been welded down. Doc and Cavanaugh both struggled to assist him, but it was futile.

Meanwhile, the reservoir water continued to rumble--draining away, foot by foot.

Cavanaugh was only vaguely aware of how the flow of the water was making the floor beneath his boots vibrate mechanically, as though powering some convoluted and grotesque machine. He was agonizingly aware, however, of the thumb-width holes in the stone floor beneath Ali's boots. He saw something moving there--something other than Ali's shuffling feet. His eyes went terribly wide when he saw what was beginning to happen.

Cavanaugh was speechless with horror when Ali, blissfully ignorant before, finally began to notice.

"What?" Ali pleaded, reading Cavanaugh's eyes.

He looked down and screamed.

* * *

Rainy heard what was happening, and he felt the rumble of the evacuating adjacent reservoir.

He knew by their screams and grunts that the soldiers wouldn't notice anything he did--if he did it at that moment. This was his best chance yet to escape. With a burst of energy harnessed from sheer exigency, he pulled his chin to the rim and kicked his left ankle up and over. He could see that the soldiers were definitely too busy doing something near an outgoing tunnel to notice him; but, instead of running away, his eyes lingered over his deep almost-tomb. He noticed the size of the drain hole in the bottom. It was huge.

Big enough to swim through.

He rolled to his feet, and dashed to the gurgling pool next door.

Just behind Doc and Cavanaugh's back, he dived into the turbulent water, and vanished down the drain.

* * *

"What?" gasped Ali, at first incredulously, and then dreadfully. "What..? What!"

There were sharp metal spikes rising from the floor every few inches throughout the trap. They rose an inch at a time, and inch at a time...

"Get me out of here!" screamed Ali. "Get me the fuck out of here!"

"We're trying!" screamed Cavanaugh, but the grate wouldn't budge.

Ali tried to maneuver his feet around the spikes as they emerged, contorting his ankles and legs so that they might pass harmlessly by. His contortions bought him a few extra seconds. He searched Cavanaugh's eyes for strategic hints; he besought hope from Doc's. He made himself believe that if he just twisted himself enough to buy them the few extra seconds they needed to finish working--if he just--

He felt cold metal, poking at his neck and back.

"No..." he moaned, "No!"

The spikes were coming from the ceiling as well as the floor, sandwiching him from the top and the bottom.

He began to shriek.

The remainder of Ali's life was brief and furious; ending in a final, blood-vapory gasp that he heaved-out even before the last of the water in the reservoir had drained. Seconds later, the chamber was silent again; save for a steady _drip, drip, drip_ which, for the next several hours, echoed throughout the room.

* * *

Perhaps if he had been able to give it some thought, he might not have acted so rashly.

It was finally beginning to dawn on him how far he had come. Twenty-nine hours ago, would he have chosen to jump into a swirling, forty-foot vortex before considering simply running through an open doorway? Would he have ambled along an eight-inch ledge so high above a canyon that its river looked artificial? Could he have mustered the courage to run through an open clearing, knowing that a highly-skilled sniper was watching for him from no more than a hundred feet away? Could he have acted on pure instinct? Without thinking? Without fearing? Where was this courage coming from? Was it healthy? Was it sane?

What he had just done was to dive into an unplugged sink, after all. He had thrown himself into an uncharted plumbing system. Flushed himself down a stranger's toilet. While he was swirling wildly through the vortex, feeling the force of the thousands of gallons that were trying to shove their way past his inconveniently solid body, he thought about the opportunity he had just missed to run east--up one of the tunnels and back to the terrace. Maybe he could have escaped back across that covered bridge and gotten back to the amphitheater. Why hadn't such an obvious course of action even occurred to his beleaguered mind? He couldn't remember why a whirlpool had sounded better. Whatever form of logic had motivated this choice, it had since abandoned him. It was as if seeing the violence taking place in the drain hole he was about to be sucked through had somehow erased it.

The walls of the reservoir were as well-lit as the walls of the chamber above, so what might have been a less distressing sight, had it been shrouded in murky darkness, was instead as plain to him as a highway accident at noon-day. He could see it coming. He had enough time to realize how wildly insane he must have been to jump into a draining reservoir without thinking about it first. The water exiting the drain-hole was being collimated and made to turn a water-mill turbine. The baffles span so quickly that the supposedly "open" trap door had become a blur of windmilling metal fins. There was nothing more he could do other than count his few remaining seconds.

The effect was to make Rainy strangely contemplative.

It caused him to reflect upon the insanity of the previous twenty-nine hours. He had been stalked, chased, shot at, wrecked on a motorcycle, three times nearly drowned (and going on a fourth), almost blown up, chased along an eight-inch ledge, almost thrown forty feet to his death (admittedly due to his own carelessness), and now he was about to be rended into shreds by what, for all immediate appearances, seemed to be the rotor of an Olympic-sized swimming-blender. He pondered. He wondered what form of madness it was that could take a human being who usually found his greatest pleasures playing video games and daydreaming about girlfriends and bicycles, and could turn him into a human juggernaut, driven to act without thought, and survive at any cost.

The fact was, there was only so much madness a twelve-year-old boy could take.

By the time he was flushed through and out the other side of the rotor, Rainy was changed. Whatever it was that had made him run, jump, fight, and even kill during his past twenty-nine hours had suddenly evaporated. He emerged breathless, exhausted, and utterly defeated.

Quite inconveniently, Rainy was sane again.

* * *

Cavanaugh and Doc had been helpless but to watch.

It took them several moments of watching spikes pressing into, passing through, and then finally skewering Ali's body before they realized their gesture of trying to raise the grate was no longer required. Before he had even stopped screaming, Ali was someplace else. Feeling the burden of urgency slipping from their shoulders, they shifted spontaneously from a posture of empathy to one of disgust. Each man backed away from Ali's spasming, blood spewing corpse before even regaining the self-awareness to recall the presence of the other, behaving identically.

They were suddenly alone again. It had become an appallingly familiar feeling.

The significance of the moment was lost to neither Cavanaugh nor Doc. They each looked to the other in a second's silent refrain, acknowledging their mutual bereavement, each searching the other's eyes for reflections of his own wretchedness. Each found what he was looking for: the horrid glare of a man struck dumb by his own sense of deja-vu; wearied by the sheer incredulity of it all.

Outwardly, both men responded similarly to the terrible realization. Inwardly, however, the two dealt with their turmoil quite differently. Cavanaugh found himself staggering, his mind clinging to the images of the faces of the people he'd seen killed or whom he knew were dead. He and Doc had been in Peru longer than anyone else. They had survived the attrition of two separate squads; they had survived four separate failures to end their mad war. They had been fighting for two full days. They had avoided no risks. They had braved every peril. And yet they were the last two men standing, again, and again, and again. Cavanaugh wondered if it was some kind judgment--like that against the Wandering Jew. He was becoming lost within himself, staring at Ali's bleeding corpse. He was becoming morbid and paralyzed.

Luckily, Doc's response was less introspective. He, clearly, was simply disgusted by the sight of Ali's corpse. His eyes wandered around the chamber--obviously seeking any excuse to look at something else. After a moment, he found exactly the thing they both had forgotten they were searching for.

"Hey!" Doc shouted, spinning the rest of the way around and pointing at the hole where last of the reservoir water was gurgling down the drain. "There he is!"

Cavanaugh span around.

The two men watched while Rainy's wiry body descended into the hole and vanished, enveloped by the maw of something seemingly dwelling at the back of the reservoir's throat. They couldn't tell exactly what had happened, but they were left with the distinct impression that he had somehow survived. And had escaped yet again.

The two men looked at each other, and down the forty-foot pit.

They looked at Ali, behind his bars, bloody dead on metal pungees--his satchel, which contained their rope, still hanging over his mangled shoulders.

They dreaded what they had to do next; but, silently, they did it.

* * *

Rainy fell into the contraption, pounded by the water following after him.

It was like a water merry-go-round, with a spindle similar to that of the water-wheels he had seen in old landscape paintings. Its arms had bath-tub sized carts to catch the falling water (and the falling Rainy), forcing a central shaft to rotate. The shaft was driving some sort of machine, but Rainy was moving too quickly to examine it. He had only barely enough time to suck in a quick breath before being thrown from the bucket into a discharge aqueduct.

The aqueduct was enclosed and narrow; a long, straight shaft. But it didn't take him long to regain his bearings and get his head above the foam. While the current was fast and the surfaces slick, the water wasn't deep, and he wasn't in any immediate danger. He was almost prepared to declare his ordeal over when the aqueduct's declination suddenly increased and he saw where it led.

He lacked even the fortitude to scream.

* * *

To follow Rainy, Cavanaugh and Doc had reached through the grate, through the bloody spikes, and had fished Ali's 100-foot rope from his gore-spattered pouch. They had used it to climb down into the empty pool. Once on the bottom, they had activated the rope's retracting grappling head with a jerk, releasing its anchor. They had then recoiled it, had stowed it, and had moved on; through the dormant merry-go-round spindle. From there, they had climbed into the slick, empty aqueduct, which ended at a large opening, occluded only by a thin wall of water, falling from somewhere above.

Once they had walked the length of the aqueduct and had stepped past that thin wavering veil…

...they could see _everything_.

Their first shock had been the green. In the caves, in the tunnels, in the canyons, everything had been dank and gray--or at best, sterile and white. But, from their view from the jutting lip of the aqueduct, everything was sparkling green. Once they stepped through and beyond the falling water, for as far as their eyes could see, everything was lush and thriving. A veritable panorama of living color. To their utter incredulity, they were overlooking an immense valley, and it was vigorously alive.

Their view was filled with an ocean of leafy tree-tops. They saw flying birds and heard flowing rivers. They saw verdant rocky hills and grassy mountain bluffs. It wasn't like a cavern at all--it was lit up like noon-day. The entire ceiling was a brilliant explosion of sky-like light. It was as though a slice of the atmosphere illumined by the sun had been transposed with the chamber's regular rock-lid, and the result was the yellow-white, almost perfectly natural, color that filled the vast, primordial valley.

It was like no natural environment they had ever seen. Even apart from the obvious differences due to be being located in a cave, this valley was distinct. It was coursing with savagery. Its landscape bespoke a world kept active through seismic violence and geologic opportunism. In unlikely places, lowlands had exploded upright into gangling hills and jagged peaks. Landmasses had been twisted apart to accommodate the stringy blue rivers that riddled the landscape. With water flowing from all the walls and coursing throughout the land, the entire landscape squirmed with an almost pulmonary undulation.

Its biology, too, was a warzone. The valley was splintered into factious regions where militant life battled for space. There were living things growing green upon the peaks of places too tall, too narrow, and too sheer to suppose equanimity. Everything was fierce and competitive and dangerous and awful. The valley seemed filled with cruelty and evil ingenuity. The mere sight of the place awakened their most dreadful primordial instincts.

This was a lost world. Though it was fed by the above-world's water, and was filled with what must once have been the above-world's life, this miles-wide biosphere had somehow filtered its influx to exclude every taming influence. Somehow, this inside-valley had stopped time. This world was a window into a era millions of years past.

Their eyes dilated taking it all in. They dove into the valley with their minds, and nearly fell from their ledge as a result. Their knees lost strength and they staggered there in awe. With the south consumed by waterfalls and mountains, and the west and north completely consumed by the crystal-blue moat (its white mists filling the distance in all directions), the fact that valley had walls--that it_ must_ have walls--was easy to forget. The place had an overpowering illusion of infinity.

Their minds trembled in their awful effort to stop staring--or at least to blink.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," murmured Doc, repeating the word quietly, like a mantra, wiping the water from his forehead and eyes, as though to rule out the possibility that the view was simply a trick of his own blurry vision.

"Fuckin 'A', fuckin, fuckin 'A'," whispered Cavanaugh, no more aware of Doc than Doc was of him.

"It ain't fucking real," said Doc.

"Oh, it's real," assured Cavanaugh. "Listen to those birds. Those bugs."

"This ain't the bush, man!" Doc said. "This is a cave! We're underground, man!"

Cavanaugh didn't want to argue. This was as good a time as any to call the colonel and report.

"Colonel Spaulding, this is Lieutenant Cavanaugh," Cavanaugh said.

While Cavanaugh reported in, Doc took the moment to explore their immediate surroundings. They were standing a few hundred feet above the ground, on a twelve-inch cliff; the thin falls at their backs. Their aqueduct terminated in a natural outcropping that only extended a few feet from the mountain's wet slope. The two men had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in order to share it.

The waterfall was still so close and so heavy at their backs that it steadily, repeatedly, rewetted Doc's face. He looked up and saw how it fell from a similar aqueduct terminal above their heads. He saw how there were, in fact, similar spillage ports, evenly spaced, all across the mountainside. He shook his head to get the water out of his eyes. The water spilled straight down to the foot of the mountain, hundreds of feet below, where it pooled in small, rocky lakes that blotched the southern-most landscape, as though the waterfalls had brutally cut open the mountain's foot, and the lakes were the wounded mountain's scars.

All this water apparently came from a common reservoir, presumably man-made, on the mountain-top. The swimming pool-reservoirs inside the structure were filled with fresh water because they were being constantly replenished--refilled by an aqueduct that redirected water from one or more of the chamber's walls. It was an ingenious system. Doc was wondering what its purpose might be when his eyes saw something directly below himself--so directly below himself that he almost missed it entirely.

"No, not yet," Cavanaugh was saying into the radio, "but, sir, where are you? Can you see all this...?"

"Well, lookie, lookie here," Doc said. "Cavanaugh!"

Cavanaugh looked--first at Doc, and then straight down to where Doc was looking.

"Well, I'll be," Cavanaugh said.

Rainy was down there, fifteen feet below them. He was clinging desperately to the outcropping of the next aqueduct down. He was half-beneath their waterfall, being pummeled by it. He was stranded and helpless.

If he could hear their voices talking about him, he showed no sign of it.

"Wait one, sir," said Cavanaugh. "I may have news for you in a second."

"Sorry, Colonel," said Doc, mockingly, "the kid went down, fell in the rocks. Them holes? Them ain't bullet holes, sir. Them's small rocks."

He pointed his MP5.

"Wait!" said Cavanaugh.

"What?" snapped Doc.

"You can't shoot him!"

"What?" said Doc. "Man, fuck that. That boy's _death_."

Cavanaugh understood. Too many had died because of Rainy Hedgebrook already.

"But we need him alive," said Cavanaugh.

"Maybe he'll live."

And Doc took aim again.

"No!" said Cavanaugh, slapping Doc's barrel off-line.

"Man!"

"Give me that rope," Cavanaugh ordered.

"Look, man," Doc said. "We don't need him. Not this damned bad."

"Give me the rope."

"Man," whined Doc, reaching behind himself and producing the blood-stained coils.

Cavanaugh let the rope uncoil and descend along the mountainside. He wedged its grappling hook into a fissure between the rocks above his head. He hooked the rope through the rappelling ring built into his load-bearing gear and he prepared to rappel. Maintaining the requisite tension, he leaned back from his anchor, trusting it to hold him.

"Man, what are you doing?" complained Doc.

"We can do this, one at a time," Cavanaugh said. "I'll just put Rainy on my back."

"That's not what I mean, motherfucker."

"I know."

Cavanaugh repelled from the wall and descended toward Rainy Hedgebrook.

* * *

The water swirled through his ears, making it impossible to hear anything other than the fall's own incessant roar. It got in his eyes, despite their being pinched tightly, tightly shut. The cold was numbing. Whether his fingers were slipping inch by inch from the pitted black rock to which they clung, or whether they were still holding fast remained a perfect mystery to his mind--because he couldn't feel his fingers. Somewhere within Rainy, buried beneath less than a hundred pounds of shivering flesh, there was a little boy who was nothing other than very, very scared.

He wasn't aware that a pair of black leather boots had dug into the rocky cliff beside his face, and he didn't see the black uniform that descended over him and broke the ceiling's light with its shadow. He only barely noticed the hand gently clasping his shoulder.

But he noticed the voice.

"Hello, Rainy," it said.

The voice wasn't violent or threatening. Compared to the roar of the waterfall thrusting down at him, this voice was soothing. Comforting.

"Let me help you," the voice cooed, almost directly in his ear.

He remembered whose voice this was; yet, for some reason, its usual emotional harshness did not accompany it. It felt warm.

"Help me," Rainy's mouth whispered, barely able to pronounce the words without inhaling the water streaming over his cheeks and lips. His words were both a quiet plea and a question. The way he intoned them implied the hope, _please don't be here to hurt me_.

"Take my hand," Cavanaugh said.

Rainy took his hand.

"But one thing," Cavanaugh said.

Rainy froze.

"No more tricks. No more running. No more death."

This was a condition Rainy could readily accept.

He relaxed, and Cavanaugh removed him from the water.

Cooperatively, they worked their way down to the ground.


	15. Chapter Fourteen: The Lost World

"_Reach deep within_

_Where reality is hard to find_

_Search in the corners of the_

_Winding mazes of your mind_

_Seek out the treasures _

_That open doors that some keep sealed_

_Believe in your dreams and_

_A wonderworld will be revealed_

_Come to the boundless land_

_Somewhere inside your fantasies_

_Built by dreams and magic_

_The secret place that none have seen_

"_Devils and demons_

_Dungeons and dragons_

_Phoenix is rising_

_From the ashes in the wind_

_Born into glory_

_Then back into ashes once again_

_High flies the dragon_

_The ruler of the seven skies_

_Riding the winds not_

_Knowing that he just can't die_

"_Chase the horizon_

_Catch the illusion_

_Remember the child within_

_There's no tomorrow_

_Just sadness and sorrow_

_Hold on to the Ancient Dreams…_"

**--Candlemass.**

**INSTRUMENTAL: "The Jump." **

**--Jerry Goldsmith **

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack:

_Rambo: First Blood Part II_.)

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN:** **"**The Lost World.**"**

"Heave!"

Sydwinsky, Stryber, and Ross yanked mightily upon the rope, pulling yards of its length along their bodies, piling it up behind their single-file line-up. Leaning forward once more, they reset the grip of their hands and waited for Stryber to cry out their next cadence. He yelled 'heave' again, and the trio dragged their cargo hard from the water, beaching it on the sandy shore.

There were six men in black who were working in the clearing. While Sydwinsky, Stryber, and Ross pulled hard upon the rope that drew their water-borne equipment down the river, the command officers, Colonel Spaulding, Major Leipig, and Captain Bailey, were busy unlashing crates and containers. After separating the team's gear from the rafts that had been used to float it through the cave, the officers arranged it in the dirt and ankle-high shrubs to create a make-shift control base in the middle of the open beach.

The Operations Force's first glimpse of this jungle-cavern had been from the high vantage of the waterfall between the cave and the deep and narrow north-south canyon. When they had first had intruded, the soldiers had perched themselves at the corners of the waterfall's drooling lip, where they had enjoyed a generous respite to contrive their means of descending into the canyon--a respite indulged them by the river's relative modesty; a 'modesty' that was only 'modest' if compared to the sheer mercilessness this same river had shown Lieutenant Murphy and First Squad earlier in the day. The water itself was no less coursing or powerful, but Captain Bailey's soldiers had been better prepared, and had thus been able to traverse the obstacle expertly. Under Captain Bailey, they had affixed the end of a rope to the rocks and sent its tail dangling over the fall's edge. The rope in the foamy bottom had then been tied to a raft which was let to float in the bumpy turbulence, anchored--such as it was--by the down-aimed tether. This raft had been, in turn, attached to the beach by a series of ropes coupled end-to-end to form a single guideline several hundred meters in length. Sydwinsky, Stryber, and Ross had swum the rope to shore, and were now using it to perform their exhausting task of dragging their gear after them.

The falls were a hundred feet tall and almost completely blocked from the shoremen's sight. They were far away, recessed behind the canyon's bend; obscured by the wall of the canyon's rising, palisade mountains. There were two soldiers who had been left at the falls to man the ropes and raft: One at the top of the distant waterfall, and one at the bottom. The men on the beach could only barely discern the stark, black shape of Lieutenant Wallis' uniform standing on the ledge at the side of the spill, guiding slide-ring mounted cargo unto the zip-line and sending it sliding down the rope. They could also just barely see where the cargo crashed into the raft--usually missing it or over-turning it in its impact. Always unsafely close to the splash-down, they could see Sweet's bobbing head where he treaded water, impatiently waiting for his chance to attend to Wallis' deliveries. He would swim back to the raft and remove the cargo's sliding-ring from the zip-line, hooking it instead to the shoremen's heave-line, which wound its way away from him through the canyon-bottom waters. The rope would then drag the cargo away, powered by the current and Sydwinsky, Stryber, and Ross' sweaty labor. After the cargo had been safely delivered to the beach, Sweet could then retrieve his line by a second rope which permanently connected the sliding-ring to the wobbly raft.

The isolation of the two men in the water made them seem far away; not only literally, but metaphorically. It was as though they were experiencing a different world from that of the men on shore. The men pulling the rope could discern the disconnectedness in the faces of their cliff and waterborne comrades, despite the distance between them. Standing on the sands, hearing the birds, smelling the pollen in the air--it gave the shoremen a gut-level appreciation of the surreality of their new area of operations that they felt assured Wallis and Sweet were entirely lacking. Hearing and smelling still only the icy-clean water which inundated them, they were assuredly still fully, blissfully, unaware of just what the hell they had gotten themselves into. While individually, the soldiers on the beach had not yet given their bizarre environment its truly due regard, the furtive surveys performed by one or another of them at any given moment had been plenty for them, collectively, to have an appreciation of their incomprehensible surroundings.

The colonel and the captain had kept them working too hard and too continuously for them give the place the thought it was due. The distraction was probably deliberate, they each quietly deduced; it being clear to even the least thoughtful of them that paralyzing terror might lay like a minefield between their present ignorance and any sort of genuine realization. There was just no precedent for such a place as this--no hints from any version of scientific reality that any of them had ever been exposed to. There was just no telling what they might find here. No telling what might _find them_ if they weren't careful.

But for the moment, the inside-jungle seemed innocuous enough. Its thick woodline didn't encroach within a fifty-meter radius from their deliberately chosen base-site--a circumscription that had placed a seemingly healthy buffer-zone between them and the bizarrely-lit mystery jungle's unknown territories. Even though they couldn't see far into the woods--blocked by the shadows, the trees, and the ferns--and even though they knew that their exposure made them easy to see by whatever might be prowling in the woods around them, their minds took comfort in the fact that they were all very heavily armed--and in that they were all together in a large group. Their size and firepower were, in fact, their _only_ comforts.

They had only just arrived, and they were already itching to get the hell out.

Captain Bailey approached the three pullers from behind and asked: "How many more?"

"None," said Stryber, breathing heavily, "That's it."

"Wallis!" said the captain into his radio, "what's left?"

"That's it," Wallis' voice replied, shouting over the roar of the falls near his face.

"Wait there," the captain commanded. "More's coming."

"_More?_" asked Wallis. "_From where?_"

"The colonel called for a special delivery," said the captain. "It's on its way. Stand-by."

* * *

He loved the wet season.

When the water was high, the nourishment was plentiful.

Yes, there was nourishment on the surface, as well, certainly; there were Pouncers and Prowlers and other little things to munch, but on the dry ground those creatures were always too fast to be worth his while. He could sense their little twinklings of nourishment tempting him like fireflies from the woodline, each one a delicious single munch, yet worth so disappointingly little more. In the time it would take to climb out of the water and chase more than one of them down, he would be so tired that the nourishment he received for his trouble would hardly be enough to get him back into the water again.

But in the water...

In the water--ahh!--it was an easy life in the water. Especially in the wet season, when the Slipperies came again in droves. They were always easy to hunt, and so plentiful! They didn't have as much nourishment within them as any of the animals on the ground--not even as much as the little Flutteries--but he could easily make up for their individual deficiencies through _bulk_. And the "hunt" was effortless. As soon as he opened his mouth, they swam right in! All he'd have to do for his meal was open his jaws and wait...And then _chew_.

The only times he had better eating than with the Slipperies were the times when he chanced upon ground animals caught in the water. In the water, creatures that had been fast and agile and daring on the ground became slow, and sluggish, and predictable. Slipperies were fine for the in-between times, but he preferred to spend his hours skulking along the shores, waiting for the occasional unlucky ground-thing to slip from a tree branch or jump into the water for a drink. He could sense them when they emerged from the woods--one creature's nourishment standing out from the background noise of all of the others'--and it drew him. The bigger the creature, the greater the nourishment; and the greater the nourishment, the greater the _draw_.

Most days were slow for him in this regard. He spent his hours waiting for a sense of something coming close enough to eat; waiting for the sounds and the smells of things becoming vulnerable. On this day, he had skulked for hours--days it had seemed like. He had been becoming tired, and had considered diverting out into the middle of the big water to munch Slipperies for a while and refresh himself. He was _starving_.

And then he had sensed it: The most prodigious source of nourishment he could ever remember sensing. Granted, his memory was limited to his most exciting moments of no more than five minutes past; but even so, this sensation was enormous. It was so large that his normal hunting instincts didn't quite know how to respond to it. It was very far away, but it was drawing him to it like a magnet.

Without the least hesitation or inhibition, he swam.

* * *

Doc was finally down to the second ledge. Rainy watched him working, gazing up from the ground.

The soldiers' rope was too short to reach all the way to the solid platform-rock at the bottom of the falls, so they had descended in phases; from one ledge down to the next. They would wedge their high-tech-looking grappling hub into a secure opening in the wall's face and then ride its rope down the wall for as long as its length would reach. Once stable on a fresh perch, they could shake and pull on the rope in some specific formula that Rainy hadn't yet deciphered, and the hook's tines would recoil, and the grappler would fall, to be used again for the next descent. The rope was just long enough to complete the process in three rappels.

Once Rainy and Cavanaugh had touched ground, Doc had pulled the grappling rope back up to himself by the long and sometimes tangled cord he had earlier tied to it. Doc was repelling quickly down from the second ledge to the third. He would be safely on the ground with them in minutes.

In the meantime, Rainy was waiting; astounded by the scenery.

From above, while riding parallel to the waterfall, rappelling down the mountain on Cavanaugh's back, he had seen the incredible place he was entering, and hadn't been able to grasp it. He had at first presumed it to be an illusion; some elaborate fake--like a movie set--somehow constructed for some very wealthy person's unfathomable purposes. But then he realized that there was a rich forest aroma in the air and a certain, canny depth to the scenery. The place was real. It had real trees. Real birds. Real mountains. He didn't know what to think.

Or how to feel.

He was standing in the company of his enemy, and was feeling no compulsion to flee. The concealment of the jungle waiting before him extended no allure. He wanted to remain where he was, in the company of adults. Even if these specific adults might well be later ordered to put him to death--and they might even obey the order--he didn't sense that the mysterious underground jungle before him could possibly represent the less risky of his immediate options.

Cavanaugh allowed him to cling to his side, clutch at his elbow, receive a share of his body's warmth. The man and the little boy indulged for themselves an illusion of alliance, even comradeship. Both seemed to know it was at least artificial, and probably quite false, but neither wanted to face the compelling alternative course: To run, and then, just as forbidding, to chase.

It was a capture of sorts, and a surrender of sorts; but it was not the least bit forced nor regretted. Rainy wouldn't run. He couldn't run. For the moment, his promise to Cavanaugh was his excuse. He was prostituting his quiet compliance in return for Cavanaugh's care over him. It was a bargain. He didn't know if Cavanaugh would--or even could--really protect him from the colonel or from whomever the hell else might next order him killed, but he knew that for the first time in his days-long nightmare he had finally lost the will to resist.

And, apart from his enemy, he had also lost his only protection.

He wondered where Lara had gotten to.

* * *

Lara swam.

The water was shimmering and crystalline and pure. It gently surged all around her soothed her with its fizzle. She could see the seaweed-covered river-basin floor undulating hypnotically beneath, the water being as transparent as air (if more like the heated air of the sultry desert than the cool, humid air that was actually above her). The same regular, hypnotic pulse of waves that flowed across her body was making the tall-standing seaweeds below seem to wag in a graceful rhythm, like prairie reeds blown in the wind.

She swam calmly, floated gently. It was like flying.

To Lara, it was like a dream. A place she had, perhaps, seen before in her mind--on some dark, forgotten night, long ago in childhood. There was a wooing familiarity to the place; a sense of destiny. It was as though the place had been made for her, had been promised to her, had been waiting for her. The tall trees, growing indoors, against a background of water-washed mountain-like walls, and a stunning day-like ceiling glare. It seemed no frightening anomaly to her at all, but rather a deeply personal and awesomely intriguing mystery intended solely for her experience. She was not afraid. She was compelled. Deep in her heart, she knew this place had been erected for her. Somehow, she knew, this place was her birthright. She only questioned what it all might mean.

And she wondered, earnestly, what might be coming next.

* * *

Stripes prowled.

It had been a long and boring day, and the others hadn't once left his sides. They knew full well, as Stripes himself did, that if there were any excitement to be found that day, it would be him, Stripes, who would find it for them. Sometimes he lead them in games of tag against the Big One, or he would them find a particularly dangerous-looking river-swell to swim through. Sometimes he would find them a flock of Pouncers to chase after--or be chased by, if the sharp-toothed little mobsters were hungry enough. Sometimes he found his followers trees to climb, or mountains to scale, or white-walled-worlds to explore. Every day was glorious because, by the time tomorrow came, they would have forgotten every exact thing they had done the day before--incapable, as they were, to remember any of its details. The only thing they could ever recall from one day to the next was the image of Stripes' face, and how an experience of excitement and fun could always be associated with it. On boring days, the sight of Stripes' face attracted them, his followers, like dew-drops from leaves into a groundling mud-puddle.

Stripes was excitement. There was something in his face, his bounce, his swagger. His keen eyes were always wide open, searching, seeing things to chase, things to climb, things to do. He led the others with a demissiveness of their presence that made them feel as though they didn't exist to him; an attitude that only made their implicit trust in his capacities to entertain them even greater--even _they_ couldn't distract him. They looked where Stripes looked, and listened whenever he did. As with everything Stripes did, they couldn't understand what information there might possibly be in the sounds he was hearing and heeding, but they trusted in his genius and marveled at his powers. When he listened to the Flutteries, the patternless chirping meant nothing to them, but they were absolutely certain it was bursting with meaningful nuance to Stripes.

Still, despite his powers, today Stripes had not yet been able to find his entourage any worthwhile activities. He'd looked high and low, circled most of the land in the world, and yet had found them nothing more distracting than a small gaggle of Pouncers to scatter. Bored with the little cowards even himself, Stripes had let them escape--not realizing their chase would end up being the only break they would have in their day's erstwhile doldrums. Since then, Stripes' had found his followers nothing more exciting to do than a few simple water-crossings, and they were actually beginning to become frustrated with him--if such emotions were even possible for their primitive little brains. Unless he was to lose face, Stripes needed to deliver.

And then suddenly he could.

He stopped.

He tilted his head, and sniffed the wind.

The others halted too, tilted too, sniffed too.

Stripes clicked his teeth knowingly, and, as though ignoring the others as usual, he jaunted off into the woods.

Their day's boredom finally breaking, his six followers excitedly followed.

* * *

Major Leipig wished very much that it were possible for him to simply, calmly, focus himself upon the Landez-interference problem, but he just couldn't.

The colonel had been right to set the other soldiers to productive work, keeping them busy, keeping them from thinking too much about this place around them. Leipig's 'work' was to do just exactly what the colonel had dared not allow anyone else to do: _think_. Granted, the intention was that he be sitting at his make-shift desk and thinking about how to re-narrow the ILC-locator protocols from their presently useless 2000-meter diffusion back to their original 10-meter standard, but it hadn't been long before the distractions of the incomprehensible world around him made had his mind wander--and wander toward all of the wrong things.

First of all, most obvious of all, was the place itself. This was the inside of an underground river system. How could there _exist_ a chamber so vast? By the view of it he had seen from the mouth of the waterfall, he would have had to guess that the place was large enough to hold a small city, easily doming-over its skyscrapers. Erosion couldn't explain it. Though it was underground--underneath a mountain, no less--the sky was as lit up as mid-afternoon day. How could there be 'sun' underground? Logic couldn't accommodate it. And there were plants and trees and birds and fish and insects--most of them unfamiliar and quite different from what he had noticed on the surface. He may have been instructed to focus his mind on the transmitter problem, but he just couldn't help it--everything else seemed secondary. His mind was caught on this impossible biosphere, and he couldn't free it.

And yet the biosphere was only the fuel for the fire. His mind was racing. There was a connection between this biosphere and his dark discoveries in the Project's files--the weapons that not only should not have been in his files, but that should not exist at all. There was a meaning to the fact that the amplitude of the Landez signal was off the scale in this place, and that their weapons operated, somehow, by Landez principles. That this place was the center of the Singularity. He knew too much to dismiss all this with blasé detachment. The colonel's indirect warnings had come too late. He had discovered something too big to pretend away. Something that prodded bitterly at his anxieties for its crying need to be _left_ undiscovered. It was like a lesion, better left under wraps and unseen. But he _knew _what it could mean. Even if the colonel didn't. Or worse, even if the colonel knew and didn't care.

In any case, it was only he, Major Jeremy Leipig, who had the computer console, the time, and the active modem to do anything about it. It was only he who could do what had to be done. He was on his computer, as he had been ordered to be, and he was working his way through computer protocol problems--but not the ones assigned to him by the colonel. In fact, he had reset his modem so that the helicopter pilot retransmitting his signals through the satellite uplink would be less likely to realize his system is still in use. Leipig wasn't afraid the pilot might cut him off, but it terrified him to think of what would happen if the colonel were to find out. The major kept one eye on Colonel Spaulding, and one finger on the computer's OFF switch. He had strayed into cyber-realms where court-martials were the least of his dangers. He was intruding into databases where conventional clearances simply didn't apply. Where no clearances applied.

The more he learned, the more he trembled.

The weight of the world was descending upon his shoulders.

God save him, he was hacking the Pentagon.

* * *

Mitch patrolled the bush, slumped forward in a low-profile poise. It was like deja-vu-all-over-again. Three years ago, he'd patrolled some bush that had felt just like this place. The birds had been just as distant and echoey and yet ever-present; the trees had also been the obvious dominant plant-form, and the groundling ferns had seemed just as oddly sparse and stunted. As it was in his present patrol, his team had consisted of only himself and one other man--another highly-experienced professional soldier who also didn't officially exist. And their mission--just as the present one--had never officially happened. For Mitch, there were only two major differences between this mission and the previous one: In the previous mission, their jungle hadn't, in reality, been in a cave; and in the previous mission, his partner hadn't been so annoyingly chatty.

"What do you figure?" Byrd wondered, "scientists, right? Maybe NASA or something?"

"NASA?" whispered Mitch disparagingly, shaking his head, wishing Byrd would shut his mouth and pay more attention to their patrol.

"Well, who, then, man?" Byrd asked.

"I don't fucking know," Mitch whispered back.

Bryd was from Second Squad. What had been left of Second Squad after the native villagers had decimated it. They'd lost their lieutenant and two of their soldiers before they'd been able to get their act together and fight back as a team. The three survivors had been placed over into Third Squad, beneath Mitch's Lieutenant, Wallis. Third Squad had suffered a few loses in the scuffle as well, but the colonel had apparently deemed it better to consolidate Second's survivors into Third's command structure rather than make a lieutenant out of Second Squad's next man in the chain of succession. The colonel had been right, Mitch agreed. Byrd had been next up--and who the hell would follow Byrd?

"I'd almost guess another black operation, you know?" Byrd said, "only, who's doing something blacker than us?"

"Right," said Mitch, switching his tactic, hoping he might cut him off by agreeing with him.

"What the fuck, man?" Byrd moaned plaintively. "How do you think they--"

Mitch became frustrated, angry at being distracted; finding it harder to fight back his own anxiety under the pressures of listening to his partner's. He broke from his low-profile patroller's attitude and turned toward his cloying partner, speaking loudly and directly.

"I don't know," Mitch said, looking him in the eye. "You know, I just don't fucking know. Now, would you please just focus on the fucking job?"

Byrd's expression soured. He frowned and shrugged.

"I'm just thinking out loud, man," he said. "Don't gotta be all _touchy_."

"Yeah?" said Mitch. "Well, do a little less thinking and a little more..."

He floundered for a correct words, gesturing his frustration with his hands.

"'Patrolling'?" Byrd offered.

"Yeah!" said Mitch, "more_ patrolling_. Eh?"

"Whatever, man."

Mitch nodded, thinking he'd won. He continued his stalking through the woods, returning to his patroller's slumped forward, low-profile attitude. It wasn't long before he realized his partner, walking awkwardly behind him, still hadn't followed suit.

"Man, what the fuck are we doing anyway?" Byrd continued, muttering. "That bitch is probably out and gone by now."

"She hasn't been here any longer than us," countered Mitch with a sneer.

"Yeah, but we lost our tracking lock! We don't know where the fuck she is!"

"That's the point, dumbdick!" Mitch said. "We're _looking_ for her."

"Shouldn't we have waited 'til Cavanaugh and Doc got back?" asked Byrd. "Man, I don't like being out here just the two of us. This place gives me the fucking creeps."

Mitch stopped patrolling one more time, and turned again to his partner. He found Byrd's face vacant of reason--his eyes projecting nothing more than mindless defiance. He could--and obviously would--argue with anything he said, simply to avoid the silence. Mitch sighed.

"Orders, man," Mitch said. "Orders?"

"Yeah, I heard them orders, dude," said Byrd.

"'Patrol the area'," said Mitch, "the man said, 'go out, and patrol the area'..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what he said," replied Byrd, talking over Mitch while he continued:

"...so that's what we're doing, we're patrolling this area..." He emphasized his meaning by gesturing around himself with his hand.

"Yeah, I know that..."

"Well, then, shut up!" said Mitch with a grunt, "will you just shut the fuck up! Just for one goddamned minute!"

"Well," continued Byrd obliviously, "damn, dude, you know, there's no need for all this _stress_..."

"Just shut the fuck up!"

"I hear you, Mitch," said Byrd, "Just relax a little. I can hear you. Now, breathe a little, breathe..."

"Shut up!"

"Shhhh..." Byrd said soothingly, raising his hands inoffensively and gesturing Mitch to be calm.

Mitch calmed himself; and for a second, the jungle was almost quiet.

Almost--but not quite.

"You hear that?" Byrd suddenly asked, tilting his head.

"Hear what?" asked Mitch.

"That!" whispered Bryd--his first whisper of the patrol.

"Yeah..." whispered Mitch, hearing it too.

A rustle in the brush. Too big to be a bird.

And on the ground.

"Call it in," said Bryd, moving out--finally moving with a properly tactical attitude. "I'm gonna check it out."

Byrd vanished into the bush.

* * *

Even at the foot of the mountain, Cavanaugh's view overlooked the whole valley.

"What do you make of this place?" asked Cavanaugh into his radio headset.

"_I don't_," replied the colonel through the airwaves. "_I just want to get the hell done and out._"

"Hallelujah," agreed Doc, who was also on the ground by then as well and was coiling up the rope.

"The bad news is the boy doesn't have the ILC," Cavanaugh continued, glancing down at Rainy, whose shoulder was in his grasp.

"_Croft has it, then,_" surmised the colonel, sighing.

"Correct," said Cavanaugh.

"_Oh_, _well,_" replied the colonel, joylessly. "_Good work, anyway_."

"We do still need him, don't we?" asked Cavanaugh.

"_Yes, but,_" the colonel said, hesitating. "_I'm sure there're ways around the problems he's caused. His mess is a software problem of some kind. It's an inconvenience, at worst--not an obstacle. Not compared to the trouble he's caused us today. If you've really got control of him, then fine--but don't waste any more time on him. If he bolts this time, just fucking nail him._"

"No problem," grunted Doc--earning him a sharp, disapproving look from Cavanaugh.

"_What we need is the girl_," the colonel continued. "_If she's got the ILC._"

"Our PADD's aren't reading the ILC's blip anymore," reported Doc.

"_I know_," said the colonel, "_we're working on that. Go on visual for now. Have you seen her since..?_"

"Since your boy, Kini, had her running on the clifftops?" asked Cavanaugh. " No. Any word from him?"

"_No,_" said the colonel. "_He's MIA. Maybe KIA. I think he fell off the rocks_."

"Then maybe so did she," offered Cavanaugh. "Maybe we'll find her body downstream."

"_Jesus God, I hope so_," said the colonel.

"We ain't never been that lucky, sir," said Doc.

"_In any case, she's priority-one now, dead or alive,_" Spaulding said.

"Dead okay?" asked Doc.

"_Dead's fine_," said the colonel. "_Just don't blow too many holes through my fucking ILC_."

"I shouldn't have to tell you, we ain't got much chance of finding her without that tracking lock," said Cavanaugh, surveying the jungle before them. "Not in this."

"_The major's working on it_," the colonel said. "_He's hopeful. In the meantime, I want you folks down here pronto. You see us?_"

"Partly," replied Cavanaugh, gazing over the tree tops of the vast valley sloping out before them. He could see the edge of the far-away shore of the big southern water standing contrasted against the tree tops along its bank. He could see tiny dots of motion there, but it was impossible to tell whether it was the tops of his fellow soldier's heads or the outlines of the cargo crates they were transporting. "It's hard to tell how far away you are. We can see movement, though."

"_We're far_," said the colonel. "_This place is fucking huge_."

"Man," said Doc, "You see, that's what I'm talking about. Sir, so what? Even if we do get the tracking lock back, big whoop. If this place is so fucking big, we could spend the next whole year here chasing after her Speedy Gonzales ass."

"_Don't worry about that_," said the Colonel. "_It's taken care of. Just get your asses down here ASAP_."

"Roger that," said Cavanaugh.

"_Spaulding, out_."

The three were suddenly alone in the clearing again, with the dynamics of their relationship transformed. Rainy hadn't heard Spaulding's words, but he could clearly sense the emotional and psychological effects of the colonel's orders. He, obviously, could feel Doc's already cool disregard for him icing-over into hardened disinterest; and he also seemed to sense how Cavanaugh's own warmer regard was cooling.

"You hear any of that?" Doc asked.

"No," the boy replied.

"You keep your agreement with us, you understand?" Cavanaugh said. "What the colonel just said..." His voice trailed, and he decided to abbreviate his many comments to merely one: "We're done chasing after you. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," Rainy replied meekly, as though humble before his parents' impending wrath.

"Then we're ready to go," Cavanaugh said as though a report, though meaning it as an order.

"Sounds good," said Doc, who took point, and led them into the woods.

* * *

From this vantage, Lara could see everything.

She could see for miles in every direction, and there were miles of sights to see. Despite being hemmed in by the searingly bright (if perturbingly low for a "sky"), bizarrely illumined ceiling, there was an incredible sense of space all around her; a breath-taking panorama of colors, sounds, and scents. It was because of the walls and the ceiling rather than despite them that the chamber took on the awe-inspiring character that it had--generating its array of incomparably complex echoes and taking what might have been boringly familiar sounds, such as the squawking of the circling birds, and contorting them through what seemed an astounding regimen of acoustic gymnastics.

Lara had been right about the vantage she would have from this tree. She had picked it out while still floating on the water. She had been able to see how its canopy spread itself into a leafy green platform that stood head and shoulders above every other tree around it. Even from a mile away (the distance from which she had seen it), she could tell it would be the perfect look-out. The perfect observation post.

It had taken Lara more than twenty-minutes to scale her tree's massive trunk, and nearly again as long to reach an appropriately distal outcropping, plowing through its unusually tough leaves and twigs, but the effort and the time she had spent had been well worth her while. She needed all of the information she could get in order to form her next plan, and upon the reaching the tree's leafy zenith, she found her efforts to be more than amply rewarded. The view was incredible. She could see everything. _Everything_. She took her time; and the she studied, explored, and memorized.

She could see that there was water on all four sides of the main land mass. The largest water was farther west than the lagoon she had just emerged from--past another mass of land, and consuming the misty western distance. The next largest was on the southern edge of the chamber--the place into which she had dived from the clifftops. The men in black could, even that moment, be seen setting up their staging base on a beach in that area. To the north was the next largest water; a reservoir similar to the one in the south, formed from the waters that spilled down from the ceiling which flowed across the northern walls just as her recently-experienced southern ones did. The smallest individually significant water was a comparatively tiny river flowing along the eastern edge of the chamber, fed by the eastern waterfalls. It flowed steadily along the feet of the palisading mountains, along a tract of land which gradually declined from the north to the south. Its waters spilled into the bubbly rapids which emptied from where the river canyon wall first widened to wash west across the shores of the men in black's busy beach-station.

But what most fascinated her wasn't the flow of the larger waters, but the flow of the tiny streams abundantly littering the rich and luxuriant land basin. Throughout the main land mass, lines of eddies and whitened froth flowed in one direction and then the other--the contradictory flows often existing in different places of the same squiggly blue streams. She found the stream patterns confounding; a seemingly contradictory mismanagement of incongruent and impossible water-flows. There were rivers which flowed from inland outwardly into the large lagoon in some places while their neighbors--occupying the same banks, often only a few dozen meters adjacently--sometimes flowed in the opposite direction: From outland inwardly!

She only made sense of the madness after she took a moment to consider how the water was arriving there. It was coming down from the walls in a deluge that remained almost completely contiguous, surrounding the entire landscape. There was not merely one source for each stream of water, as there were in surface river deltas, but rather multiple sources--with conflicting flows. There were waters which, while riding up one river in the venous, interweaving network, could only flow so far before being battered back by waters flowing into the same vein from an opposing direction. Many rivers were so rapt with such contractions that they could never settle into single directions. Every time a mighty-enough water collided with another, a new river was formed; branching away from its quarrelsome parents and coiling off into the middle of the land. Most streams were either constantly reversing themselves, or were racked with explosive turbulence and violent whitewater energies.

Lara quickly came to understand that such was simply the nature of this underground world: Here wild contradictions produced life-giving effervescence rather than coarse, sterile dissonance. Though the streams seemed disagreeable among themselves, the result was a land as fertile and lush as that of any rainforest anywhere on the surface. Everyplace she looked was teaming with energy and life, providing Lara with not only useful information, but also the refreshing intrigue that comes with the realization of what beauty can become possible when the natural and untamed collides with the impossible and unexpected.

She took everything in, thinking, but also _feeling_ her way through the data. What the breath-taking freshness of her vantage seemed to give her was more than merely the locations of enemy, terrain, and obstacles; it gave her the catalyst to internalize it all. As she surveyed the land, Lara found that it was not by the power of her fierce intellect alone that she was formulating the composition of her strategy; instead it was her _heart_ that most informed her--answering more than its share the questions before her. It seemed that when she had bathed in the wonderland's pure crystal waters, all of the doubts that Rainy had raised concerning Bean's obvious powers of prophesy had been rinsed away. What remained in her mind was only the reified _essence_ of Bean's plan: Not Bean's words as logical propositions, nor even as premonitions, but as uncontested facts. She unswervingly designed her strategy around Bean's irrational instruction to fight her way out through the waterways themselves, wherever they might lead. She would go where the water goes. Wherever the water goes.

It was for this reason, then, that after careful analysis, Lara concluded her escape route was to the west. Even though the west was the least visible direction, due to the impenetrable white haze that consumed it, the simple fact was, more water went there than came back. Whichever squiggling rivers aimed west soon went that way without confusion. The water racing from the southern canyon waterfall rushed unabated from the east to that same ubiquitous west. Even the gentle breezes that smoothly drifted through the biosphere, lifting and tugging at her wind-dried ponytail, even they pointing her west. There were no doubts. Her way was west.

Next on the agenda was finding Rainy. She had promised him that she wouldn't leave him behind, and in her frame of mind at that moment it seemed to go without saying that she would fulfill her promise. Like her pure acceptance of Bean's intentions, she had accepted her responsibility to the boy as just another "fact" guiding her actions; a reality as automatic as the gravity that pulls down the rain. She had to find him and bring him west as well. Her first hope had been that she might find him in the men in black's camp--captured, but alive; patiently awaiting rescue. But instead she found that he was not among them. He was somewhere loose in the wild.

Realizing the difficulty of searching the entire landmass from the ground, Lara realized that her best hope was to locate him from her current vantage by the movement of his clumsy body against the brush he would be walking through. She carefully scanned the trees with her eyes, searching for the slightest incongruities. If she had been anyone but Lara Croft, such an effort would have been pointless, but Lara had no doubts that her subtle perceptions would produce fruit, and she was eventually correct. It took several minutes of patient searching, but Lara finally recognized not only one, but two sources of motion in the woods below.

The motion she found could not have possibly been young Rainy Hedgebrook alone, however. The motion she saw was too gross, too broad, too imprecise. What she was seeing was the movement of two different groups of people. She was watching two foot patrols being conducted by two groups of men in black. She searched the rest of the woods again and again, but in the end she was forced to conclude that if Rainy were even still alive, he would have to be among one of these two groups of soldiers--captured. At least she would know where to find him: The enemy camp on the beach. She was preparing to make herself comfortable for the long wait when she suddenly noticed a _third_ motion which she had failed to see earlier.

The birds drew her to it. A small flock circled over it, squawking. She had been studying the other, more obvious places of motion when their noise finally became too loud to ignore, drawing her attention almost involuntarily. While another human being might never have discerned such subtle, smooth, deliberate, and expertly practiced movement, Lara's incomparable green jewels were just sharp enough to see it occurring--moving the bushes and the sparse groundling ferns in ways just contrary to the ways the prevailing breezes were otherwise bending them. There were things down there that were hunting. Things that she would have missed had it not been for the birds who had seen them coming and had, in the process of avoiding becoming prey themselves, had begun to make their racket in order to warn any others of their kind who might be unwittingly descending their way.

The realization of their presence, once she was absolutely certain she was actually seeing something real and not merely a manifestation of her own fanciful imagination, brought a cascade of terror pouring down upon her, sending her scrambling down the tree--Rainy's name whispered plaintively on her lips. Whatever this third group was, it was stalking the other two.

* * *

"How's it going?"

Leipig almost leaped from his skin at the voice.

The colonel was leaning over him, eyeing the screen and its inscrutable arrays of numbers and figures and UNIX icons with practiced ignorance. There were hints of what it was he was really looking at: Small _United States Government: Official Use Only_ signets twisted and broken into distorted disarrangement: Remnants of the screen image which had existed before Leipig had halted the regular query protocols and had begun to tunnel his way around them. There were corners showing electronically reproduced photographs of the Capital Building, and even aerial shots of the Pentagon itself that were only partly obscured by Leipig's busy, overlapping, windows.

"Eh, fine," stammered Leipig, nervously. "I suppose."

"What are you doing?" The colonel then asked, more seriously.

Leipig began to run his excuses through his mind: the Pentagon holds the only data for radio experiments with Landez crystal, and there was no time to acquire proper permission to access it; a colleague had been doing work on this very interference problem, and his solutions are sealed in a private file--there were six or seven answers he had pre-conceived to answer the burning, damning question: _Why In The Hell Are You In The Pentagon's Highest Departments Attempting to Bypass Conventional Security?_

But the colonel himself saved Leipig before his ever-eager-to-be-self-incriminating lips could move:

"Is this part of your solution program?" the colonel asked, remarking: "it looks messy."

"Yes, well," murmured Leipig uncertainly, "it's a messy problem."

"Umm-hmm."

There was an almost-deadly pause.

The colonel noted the wires connecting Leipig's computer to his radio.

"Are you running this through your modem?" he asked. "What for?"

"Well, I, um, I mean that that would be because--" the major fumbled, battling to calm himself.

"Why not directly?"

"'Directly'?" the major asked, flinching at the sound of own voice.

"Yeah," said the colonel, "the Interlocutor is right over there. Why not hook up directly?"

"Oh, right!" Leipig laughed, screaming inside.

"What did you think I was talking about?"

"Oh, no, nothing," the major almost pleaded, "never mind."

Another deadly pause.

"Well?"

Leipig could hear his own pulse, and could see his screen image twitching, losing the sub-platform he had spent the last hour moling open. In his mind, there was battle being waged between his thoughts about what he should type into his terminal to salvage his work and his thoughts about what he should say to save his very genuinely endangered life. The stress was working its awful effects upon him, and he began to sweat. His lips trembled as he spoke, and his fingers itched to type--as if they themselves had reasoned the proper key-strokes, and were itching to seize the initiative.

"Well, because," stammered Leipig, "there'd be technical problems with a direct hook-up."

"Like what?"

"Well, actually, sir," he forced his rebelling fingers from the threshold of the keyboard long enough to scratch his heating head, "it's a little...complicated. And, I..."

The Pentagon Security Server was querying now, asking for access codes to places he'd thought he'd already circumvented. They might attempt to track him now, or they might shut him out and send him back to square-one, or they might report his activities to the Network Administration, or--

"Colonel!" said a voice from behind and far away.

"What's up?" asked the colonel, turning away. There was something coming from the water, coming up to the beach, and the colonel moved away toward it, sighing aloud with a sudden, obvious relief. He seemed to instantly forget about Leipig and his unanswered questions.

The instant the colonel was more than a few meters away, the major unleashed his fingers upon the keyboard. It was too late, however--the Network had already shut him out completely. It was as though he had attempted--and had accomplished--nothing.

A moment later, the major looked from his keyboard toward the beach, where he saw the colonel approaching a soaking-wet, miserable, wet-suit-clad man crawling exhaustedly from the river on his hands and knees.

It was Tripp.

"Goddamnit, I'm shivering again!" the beleaguered late-comer moaned.

By pure coincidence, those were the exact same words Leipig had been thinking himself only a moment before.

* * *

"Goddamnit, move!" Doc barked.

"I'm sorry!" whispered Rainy, afraid to look back into his angry, hating eyes.

Doc was at Rainy's back now, having drifted backward from the farthest forward point gradually, his distance decreasing in proportion to the increasing thickness of the bush as it enveloped them. When Cavanaugh had been the one at Rainy's side, Rainy had drifted too many times from the course, and Cavanaugh seemed to take too much time to take notice of it. Each time he had drifted, Rainy had apologized profusely, swearing that his wandering had been accidental; but unlike the forgiving Cavanaugh, Doc wasn't trusting. Doc had moved in closer--and closer--until he was finally standing two steps behind the little boy, where he could watch him like a hawk.

And badger him endlessly for the inefficiency of his comparatively stubby little legs.

"Can't you go any faster?" Doc demanded.

"I can run," Rainy offered.

"Yeah," said Doc viciously, "you go on ahead and do that."

"You're going to have to pick up the pace a little, Rainy," Cavanaugh said.

"Yeah," added Doc. "Move like your life depended on it."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder!"

"I'm going!" Rainy said, "I'm going!"

He forced his aching legs to move more quickly--but not _too_ quickly. _Increase the length of your pace_, his legs seemed to be thinking, _just not the pace itself_. Two steps too fast one after another could be followed by--followed by--

He tried not to think about it.

With Cavanaugh still alongside him, and Doc just behind--warily behind, just over his timid, little shoulders--it was as though Rainy himself were walking point. Walking in a column of soldiers as the man farthest to the front. The man whose job it was to watch for the enemy, and to dictate the column's pace of march. Since his attempts to perform the later were being so severely and so often rebuked, he let his mind focus on the former, gluing his attention to the trees, and the ferns, and the sounds of the birds, and the lay of the land. He wondered what else lived here. He wondered what they were marching so heatedly in to.

He didn't have to wonder long.

"Ouch!" he cried out, falling down.

"What?" snapped Doc, not even kneeling to look at what Rainy had just found. "Get up. Get the fuck up!"

Rainy had tripped; and when he saw what had tripped him, his eyes went wide.

It was a depression. It was as unnatural-looking a depression as one that might be formed after one drops and then removes a ten-ton slab of granite. Rainy let his eyes, and then his fingers, linger over the edges (seven inches deep, more?) before feeling the heavy hands of Doc wrenching him up by his shoulder, lifting him back to his feet.

"Wait!" protested Rainy. "Take a look at this, it's--"

"A fucking hole, dumbass," said Doc.

"It's a hole but--"

"Move!"

The hole had had a shape. An unmistakeable shape. One that was recognizable, famously, as the shape of children's nightmares everywhere.

* * *

Lara had only just started running when the shooting had begun.

She had been down the tree trunk and dashing in minutes, her pistols out, her pulse raging.

She had lost too much time in the descent--to much time lost trying to keep from becoming a casualty of this war herself; to maintain that modicum of safety necessary to ensure that she didn't fall from the distal reaches of the towering canopy tree-top rather than maneuver gracefully through its limbs and branches intact, ready for action once upon the ground. Anything could have happened in the time that she was blind, engulfed in the tough green leaves. Finally, anything could have happened during the full minute she spent sliding, hugging the tree itself, belly against its trunk, slithering down.

But still worse, once the ground, she had no idea what was going on. She could hardly presume to know what was about to happen for certain, and her uncertainty was terrifying--especially once the gunfire started. She steadily lost track of the course she had pre-decided to follow--which had been directly toward the nearest group of soldiers--and had instead ended up running blindly in the direction of the gunshots, utterly uncertain as whether the two locations were the same or not.

Though the gunfire ended only moments after it had begun, Lara's sense of its origin continued even into the succeeding silence. The shots had been staggered--not fired rapidly; and then not all at once, but rather in short, repeated bursts; and after exaggeratedly prolonged pauses. Their pitched sounds had brought a definite sense of bearing into Lara's mind. Even after a minute of subsequent silence, Lara still found the site of the gunplay.

But they were already dead.

It was the first thing she noticed, but not the most important.

Neither of the bodies were small. Neither were children.

Finally able to breath again, she examined the carnage, her weapons held out far before herself; aimed around and around and around.

The groundling plants around the bodies were flattened; as though by a dozen sets of feet. The blood was everywhere, splattered, scattered; running, drying; haphazard patterns of gore decorating the leaves. The bodies were mangled, but whole; tortured, but integral. All of the arms and legs and heads were in all of their correct places and proportions, if bent and twisted somewhat.

Their faces were bloody but patent, their eyes glazed over and open, frozen in some sort of crazed, incredulous, frenzied terror: Whatever had happened to them, they had found it not only unexpected, but _impossible_. Their mouths were open, as though trying to find words for something inexplicable and undefinable. What she saw was a pair of men punished for failing to correctly answer an unanswerable riddle, battered for their effort, and mangled for the pleasure of the things that were asking. They had died as though to the sounds of their malefactor's hysterical, sadistic laughter.

Then she saw something impossible, and virtually instantly accepted it into her mind as real--perhaps in exactly the way these dead men had failed to do. Their incredulity had cost them their lives. She was willing to believe in anything now. _Anything_. The implications of her credulity were that she found herself re-examining the bodies once more, search for tell-tail missing chunks from the fleshier parts of their bodies--their thighs, their chests. There was nothing missing, but she still saw what her credulous mind was searching for: Bite marks. Deep and gigantic bite marks.

She kneeled near the bodies and touched the bloody ground, running her finger through a two-foot-long, two-inch deep, three-toed footprint.

"Dearest God," she whimpered.

* * *

"Mitch?" shouted Cavanaugh into the pickup, "Byrd!"

"That goddamned _bitch_!" Doc shrieked.

"Shut up a minute, Doc!" Cavanaugh said, switching his headset to another channel.

"I'm going after them!" Doc shouted, taking two rapid steps.

"Stand fast!" snapped Cavanaugh, and the other soldier stopped instantly, returning an aggravated glare.

"Colonel?" asked Cavanaugh. "Colonel!"

"_What the fuck's going on out there, Cavanaugh?_" came the reply.

"I hoped you--"

"_Shut up and listen! Keep moving. Get the fuck down here!_" the colonel said.

"Sir?"

"_No fucking heroics!_"

"Goddamnit, I'll--"

"Enough, Doc!" said Cavanaugh. "Sir, whatever she did to them...All they did was scream, sir."

"_I know, I heard it, too,_" the colonel said. "_She wants to play rough, we can play rough. I'm calling everyone back. For now on, we move together. We're switching to the defensive for now._"

"The defensive?" protested Doc.

"_Defensive!_" shouted the colonel. "_We've got to get our other resources ready. We'll reassess everything once you get here. Now, move it, so we can consolidate._"

"But what about--?" asked Doc.

"_Defensive, soldier!_" snapped the colonel, "_that's a goddamned order!_"

"Yes, sir."

"_Spaulding, out._"

"Motherfucker," Doc hissed.

"Alright, let's go," said Cavanaugh, starting ahead.

"Move your little ass!" Doc snarled, shoving a newly horrified Rainy onward.

* * *

The tracks lead directly away.

They were frightening in their precision. Their tracks lead away from the bodies in a brisk, bouncing, rapacious stride. They moved in straight lines through the woods, knocking down whatever plants were in the way and staying in formation; a tight little wedge of agile lethality.

There were seven of them, she counted.

And they were smart. They knew where they were going. It was the same place as she would have been going; with or without the tracks to follow. It was the direction toward the area where she would have estimated the other party of foot patrollers would be at about this time, assuming they were still following their same course and pace. Only, she didn't have to calculate an estimate herself because these murdering things could obviously smell them, or hear them, or feel them--and all she had to do was follow their enormous tracks before her on the ground.

So she followed; and she wondered what she would do if--_when_--she caught them. Could she shoot them? Hadn't the men in black shot them? Many, many times? Could they have _missed _monsters this size? What could she do with two pistols that two men with machineguns would have failed to do? She pondered the thought while she ran, and hoped her mission of rescue would be in vain. That her quarry were following something else, returning home to sleep, perhaps--doing something other than killing her young friend.

But it wouldn't be the case.

The tracks interacted another set of tracks, and the two sets were suddenly running parallel.

The new tracks were human: Two adults and a child.

Lara broke into a fevered dash.

* * *

Doc stopped in a dead halt.

"Fuck this!" he finally snapped, "I'm going back!"

Cavanaugh halted with him and turned on him angrily, confronting him while Rainy backed fearfully away.

"No, you are not!" shouted Cavanaugh.

"I'm not leaving some little skank doing that to my people and run off!" Doc said. "I ain't scared of that bitch!"

"It's not about being scared, Doc," Cavanaugh shouted over him, "we've got our orders!"

"I'm gonna kill that fucking whore!"

"We got our orders!"

"I'm not following them!" Doc said. "Didn't you hear? Didn't you hear what she fucking did to Tommy? And Byrd? what about fucking _Bryd_, man? You gonna let her go and do that and then just go on the _defensive_? Man, what the fuck's wrong with you, Cavanaugh? You used to be a dude I could count on!"

Cavanaugh wavered.

"Look, we can't--"

"She's just _one fucking girl_," Doc said. "One, Fucking,--"

"It's not Lara!" protested Rainy--instantly feeling their surprised eyes falling upon him, oppressing him with their indignation. He continued despondantly, "It wasn't her."

"Man," said Doc to Cavanaugh, quietly, "shut your little motherfucker up, or I'm going to have to fucking shoot his little stupid ass."

"You don't know her," continued Rainy, shaking. "She...she wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" demanded Doc.

"You know," Rainy stammered. "I mean, I heard it over your headphones. The screaming."

The two men stared impassively, waiting.

"She wouldn't do that," Rainy continued. "You don't know her. She doesn't hate people like that. She wouldn't do that. Not even to you."

"Yeah," snapped Doc, "and what? They were screaming because they were just happy to fucking be here? You need to shut the fuck up or I'm gonna--"

"We're not alone," Rainy said.

Doc paused.

"I think there's…" Rainy hesitated even to suggest what was really on his mind. "_Wild animals_."

"Yeah, right," snapped Doc doubtfully, but his tone had softened.

"It wasn't Lara!" Rainy insisted quietly. "It wasn't."

"A wild animal, huh?" asked Cavanaugh, hints of disparagement in his voice.

"Yeah," Rainy whispered direly, "a big one."

They didn't challenge that. Rainy wondered if they were thinking about that giant depression he had tripped into. Then he noticed that they were listening. Listening to the…the _nothing_. There were suddenly no birds chirping anywhere around them.

And the ferns in the near distance had suddenly begun to move, as though on their own.

* * *

Lara dashed until their footprints' stride shortened and halted. She halted with them.

The human tracks continued onward, but the other tracks had scattered--as though their formation had suddenly taken a magnetic aversion to itself.

The human tracks continued, with nothing pursuing them.

Lara felt something cold welling up inside of her. There was something very wrong going on.

She jumped, span, aimed her pistols before her at---

--Nothing.

There was nothing there around her.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," she sang to the silent woods. "_What_ever you are."

It didn't answer her, and instead the birds replied. Their singing ended abruptly.

"This is it," Lara murmured to herself. "Wits about you."

The leaves rustled--

She pointed both guns--

--down?--

A tiny head poked its way out from between two fern leaves; looking up--

--smiling?--

It was about the size of a turkey, but it wasn't a bird.

It's head was the size of her fist, and it had a long, slender neck. It's skin was leathery and mottled, camoflaged like the leaves and the ferns. It's eyes were large and expressive and open, blinking at Lara, hesitating at the threshold. It had two tiny forelegs that it held like arms before itself to push the leaves away from its face so it could see her with both of its big, adorable eyes.

"Aren't you a cute little thing," Lara said, stepped forward to examine the little creature--

--and freezing after it stepped out to examine _her_.

It had an arched back, and a tail, and bird-like clawed feet.

It was a dinosaur.

"Procompthygnathus," Lara whispered.

A _venomous_ dinosaur.

It no longer seemed quite so cute.

"Oh, shit," she whispered.

But her words seemed to have called it to her like a puppy. It hopped on its kangaroo-like muscular hind legs and approached her, gazing up into her face.

"No, really, it's quite alright," Lara said quietly, glancing around herself for places to run. "I was just leaving; I was--"

It was standing at her heel, gazing upward.

She sighed.

"But you can't really be procompthygnathus," she said. "Can you?"

Despite her common sense, she kneeled before the little creature and examined it closely.

It was an amazing animal. It was warm--she could sense its warmth without touching it--and it was alert, aware, alive. Its little head cocked up and left while she examined it, always staring into her eyes. From so close, she could see its little razor teeth imbedded in its top and bottom gums.

"But you're extinct."

As though an angry reply, the little creature leaped at Lara's face and she parried it with an arm, falling backward onto her rump.

"You little bastard!" she protested, raising a weapon-bearing arm.

The creature seemed to smile again in its guileless, bright-eyed way; standing up from where Lara's arm had deflected it. It hopped again toward her, its eyes bright, its mouth open, its tongue--glistening wet--falling out from the side of its mouth like a careless dog's. It began to hop toward her, raising its little razor-clawed hands.

"No you don't, you little--"

And she fired her weapon, standing.

The creature took the shots to its chest, and it squealed, rolling backward. It hopped to its feet. Only the merest hint of a wound existed there--a tiny red spot where such a blast would have penetrated through a human in a bloody, frothy mess.

"Shit!" Lara hissed.

And when the creature leaped again, easily clearing the three meters between them, she battered it back with a barrage of pelting rounds. But when it landed, it was still intact. And still coming. She didn't give it time to jump again, however. She just kept firing at, from both guns; until, some forty or more rounds later, it stopped moving and breathing. It had finally begun to bleed.

"Oh, my God," she said, realizing she was hyperventilating. "Oh, my God."

The little creature was finally dead, bleeding, laying still. Lara was relieved, but kept her guns pointed its way, just in case.

"Weren't you a tough little one," she gasped. "Thank God there weren't...any...more...of..."

The ferns were rustling. Everywhere.

"Oh, no," Lara whispered.

Little heads were poking out from everywhere, with big bright eyes, and greasy, wet tongues drooping from open mouths. The bushes and ferns around her were filling with them--dozens of them, then hundreds of them, then--!

She ran!

Kicking her way through the nearest row of them in the thinnest-populated direction she saw, she dashed into the woods, hearing their army of little feet trouncing the shrubs behind her. Not daring to look back, Lara simply dashed, plowing through everything in her path, not caring that the leaves were cutting her more often than her body was ripping them. Not caring what might be ahead.

She could hear them howling soon--could hear them throwing a thousand little temper tantrums at the unfair fleeing of their dinner. Their little voices were childlike--as innocent-seeming as their faces. Their charm was best their weapon, she thought. For beneath and behind those adorable little faces dwelled one of the most fearsome predatory species the world had ever known. Hunting in packs, killing _en masse_, these tiny creatures could slay even the most mighty of their contemporaries.

Their _contemporaries_. Lara delighted in the absurdity--how could she to be one of procompthygnathus' contemporaries? Did this mean that her own fossilized skeleton was due to be found 65 million years in the future and admired for its stamina in having fended off so many for so long?

It was during that thought that the ground ran out.

Lara cried out as her feet left the soil, and she soared over the bank.

The water in which she landed was cold and shallow and busy; full of currents and eddies and foam. For its small size, it was grotesquely active. She realized as she landed in it that it was the far-eastern river she had seen from the tree-tops, flowing down from the waterfalls and out toward the canyon. Its waters were even more confused than she had imagined they might be when she had first observed them.

Her first thought when she had landed was that she might flow down the river and escape her mad entourage, but her feet finding solid river-bed only a few feet below the surface dashed that hope. The water was moving quickly, but it lacked the volume to give her buoyancy or velocity. Her mind raced and descended into dread--she was being pursued by things perfectly sized for swimming in waist-deep water. All she could do was wade frantically for the opposite bank and pray.

She should have prayed first.

On the opposite bank, a dozen little faces were poking out from the ferns. And then a hundred. Hundreds.

Big eyes, hundreds of them, surveyed her from both banks, and she pointed her now seemingly meaningless pistols around from face to face among them, their eyes tracking her movement. She waited for the first of them to jump in after her and take its medicine.

She would die today, it would seem; but she would not die alone. Her bullets were endless, and so too would be the cost of their dinner. She waited for them to fill up the edges along the banks, their heads poking up from places already so crowded that their continual ability to fit in more compy faces defied her imagination. They swelled the banks with their now-ugly, drooling, faces. They even began to file across a fallen log traversing the river upstream. They were all patiently staring, and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Not one single animal entered the water after her.

Not one.

She was beginning to grow weary of terror. Of searching their big, beady eyes to try to guess which one it will be who will volunteer to die first so that the others might feed. She span, and span again, but none budged. She waited. She even failed to pay attention to large groups of them once or twice--distracted for a moment or two by the cold--and yet they did not take advantage.

She began to consider other possibilities.

Were they not hungry?

Might they really be afraid of being shot?

Nothing made sense. Even if they weren't hungry, even if they were afraid, _nothing _could overrule the instinct to hunt. Given the ferocious way they had taken after her, theirs was a potent predatory drive. They should be attacking her, gun or no, hungry or no. These creatures were an instinctual, not a plotting, breed. Their hesitation had to be for an instinctual reason as well. A deep and powerful one. Something derived from a force of lust, or hunger, or fear.

Might they be afraid of the water?

She splashed at them.

They gazed back, impassively.

She wetted a dozen compy bodies with a massive wave.

They blinked their eyes and backed away--but then returned, staring as eagerly, as hungrily, as ever.

It wasn't the water itself.

Which would stand to reason, she imagined.

How would they be able to hydrate themselves with such an unfortunate hang-up?

Still assuming it was the water that they feared, she tested another hypothesis.

She took a step.

As though she had ordered the mountains to move _and they obeyed_, the herd of squawking little compys all shifted to follow.

"I don't believe this," she murmured, shivering from the river's cold.

She stepped again.

And again, the mountains moved.

She knelt in the water and kicked herself along in the current.

And they followed.

They all followed.

"You can't swim," she whispered at them.

Lara realized she was safe from them. She was certain of it. Perhaps this was some evolutionary quirk. Perhaps something completely unique to this cavern-biosphere. While every large land animal in existence may have had the instinctual knowledge of how to swim, these creatures somehow anomalously missed that entire set of skills. Either that, or they possessed some severe, species-wide, water-related psychological malfunction.

She could have spent a year wading there in those waters, watching the little dinosaurs watching her, studying their every move, experimenting until she felt certain that she had mapped the boundaries of their behavioral psychology. She felt compelled to study them, and to study everything else in this fabulous place. There were scientific wonders upon wonders in this cave. But she decided that this just wasn't the time. There were bigger problems at hand.

After all, while she was apparently safe for the moment, what was she to do next? If the creatures would follow her wherever she went, except into the water, how could she go anywhere? The moment she tried to regain the shore, they would jump all over her. Was she stuck in the water forever? She couldn't just wait there. She had responsibilities. To Bean. To Rainy.

Presuming they had survived the hike, Rainy and his captors might well be in the men in black's beach-head base by now. They were likely preparing to remove him, or preparing to torture or kill him even as she shivered. Was this going to be end of everything? A deadened, waterborne stalemate between Lara Croft and three or four hundred sharp-toothed, tiny aquaphobes?

And then, suddenly, it hit her.

There was a plan to be found in this predicament.

A plan so ruthlessly cunning she almost felt guilty for thinking of it.

Lara Croft looked around at her four-hundred or so _allies_ and began to smile.


	16. Chapter Fifteen: The Pied Sniper

"_You feel the weight of the world_

_And your back's not that strong_

_Can you carry yourself_

_Or is the weighting forever so long_

"_Time to shed your skin_

_And with it promises_

_As we bite down hard and feel_

_The weight of the world_

"_There's a song in these words_

_As they leak through your teeth_

_Shaking hands with your right_

_While cutting my throat with the left_

"_The more I know the less I understand_

_I try not to think out loud_

_The more I know_

_The more I know_

_The more I feel_

_The weight of the world!_"

**--Overkill.**

**INSTRUMENTAL: "Warrior's Suite." First Movement.**

**--Unknown **

(Original Television Soundtrack:

_Rurouni Kenshin_.)

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN:** **"**The Pied Sniper.**"**

Bark had wanted to chase.

He had taken several steps after the Ugly Things, barking and wailing, thinking it was his provocative voice that was driving them before him, scaring them into thoughtless flight. His entire body had been fluttering and twitching with excitement at the prospect of the chase and the kill, and he had completely failed to notice Stripes' hesitation.

Stripes was waiting; watching. The first Ugly Things had caused him pain, and that memory still sizzled in his mind--losing its details, but retaining its essential substance. And these Ugly Things were _different_, too. They made loud noises--screaming noises--noises even louder than Screech's baleful shrieks or Bark's stirring cries. They made strange sounds that made the ground tremble, and the air turn foul. It was hearing them coming, and smelling them nearby, that had made him pause and rethink himself. He had wanted to play some more; and at first these new Ugly Things had seemed just like the others--slow, soft, delicate, clumsy--but then the loud noises and the smelliness came, and before long the Ugly Things were moving away faster than before, almost too fast to chase.

For the first time in his life, Stripes _hesitated_.

For the others, it was a strange sight--to see Stripes hesitant. It didn't jibe with their experience. There was queer dissonance in it, making it a worrisome sight. Screech had been the first to notice--he being ever the closest at Stripes' side. When Stripes hadn't chased, neither had Screech; and when Screech had turned, puzzled, to Stripes' face, so did Eyes and Whistler--Eyes' wrinkled sockets going even wider than usual. The wind that ever-passed through Whistler's missing-tooth-space intoning a strangely higher, quizzical-sounding note. Bark, knowing the sound of Whistler's question-voice, also paused. It was only Black and Spike who kept prowling, they being so much more diligent to the cause of the hunt than any of the others.

But Black was smart--smarter than Spike, by any measure. He could hear his feet stomping brush whose neighbor branches remained standing. When his instincts flared to him to heed his unguarded flanks, his head darted side to side and his tongue flickered; becoming visible where his darting dark eyes were not, against the black of his hide. And when Spike still continued to prowl, Black growled at him until he finally heeded, too.

Then, all at once, the six of them turned to Stripes.

Stripes eyes, as always, were full of urgent energy, industry, and promise. Where perhaps Screech or Eyes had seen a dead-end to their escapades, Stripes saw new adventures dawning. His mind was ever in motion. A host of possibilities seemed whirring behind his big keen eyes, and quickly, one-by-one, he seemed to place them in order. Abruptly enlightened, a sudden directedness returned to his prowess. His pupils contracted and his chin popped up proudly, jutting eagerly forward. He suddenly knew just what they should do, and he knew how best to go about doing it.

The others, their confidence restored, bounced along after him as he gaily jaunted off into the brush.

* * *

When the motorcycles arrived, Rainy thought they were his saving angels, sent by the gods to shuttle him away from the danger he was perceiving at the periphery of his senses. He had been able to sense the eyes upon him. _Feel_ them. Dozens of them. Like hot, prickly breaths. The others could feel it as well. He saw their eyes opening up little wider, a little _wilder_, just before the engine noise brought back everyone's sanity--a sanity they grabbed at, greedily. They scrambled into place behind the riders of the three noisy, vibrating motorcycles the instant they arrived; and they clutched fiercely to their drivers' waists as they tore away into the woods, infecting their rescuers with their same nameless fear. Everyone's head and eyes darted nervously, but no one dared breathe a word: They were, perhaps, scared that 'it' might answer if called. Even Rainy was grateful when the woods opened up around them and they emerged into their busy river-beach operations base.

In all, there were six soldiers on the beach to watch their three motorcycles burn their small arcs and break in the heavy sand. Rainy didn't recognize the 50-something-year-old man using a laptop at a make-shift computer station, but he knew Wallis the moment he saw him. Wallis was seated at a crate, scribbling lines and marks on what seemed to be a hastily-drawn map. The ever-stoic Captain Bailey was also there. Ross' was another familiar face--glancing up only once from his work beneath the engine of a fourth motorcycle. None of them seemed overly concerned about what was waiting for them beyond the treeline; and that, oddly, made Rainy feel even more relieved.

But the final two faces Rainy saw effectively erased his new comfort. The first belonged to Colonel Spaulding, who never liked Rainy to begin with; and the other belonged to the utterly unexpected face of a wounded but feisty-looking Morgan Tripp--who, Rainy knew, cherished no higher wish than to see Rainy's body sliced, smoked, vacuum-packed, and sold in convenience stores as jerky. He may have looked weak and unsteady--his arm in a sling--but his eyes, despite their weariness, retained all of their old fire.

"Hi there, Rainy," said Tripp as the riders killed their engines. His voice was cooing with malevolence. "You've been busy."

"Tripp," said the colonel, distracting the angry soldier before his hand could finish clutching his weapon. The colonel stepped past Tripp and toward the three motorcycles, snapping "report" as he arrived.

"Yeah," said Stryber, Cavanaugh's driver, "both dead. Blood all over the fucking place."

"The girl?" asked Captain Bailey, joining them.

"Nah," said Sydwinsky, Doc's driver. "Not unless she's got ten hands and ten fucking meat cleavers."

"What?" asked Bailey.

"There's some other player out here," said Stryber. "One who doesn't got a fucking ounce of humanity in him."

"Or _them_," offered Cavanaugh.

"Somebody start making some sense!" demanded the captain.

"It's a slaughter house out there, sir," said Sydwinsky.

"Whatever did that..." murmured Sweet, Rainy's driver.

"It ain't _human_," concluded Sydwinsky.

"One thing's for sure, sir," said Stryber. "We aren't alone."

The colonel leaned back and digested it. His conclusions came fast.

"It's irrelevant," Spaulding said. "Nothing's going to happen here. And if it does, we'll be ready. In the meantime, we've got to stay focused on the ILC. Until the tracking system's fixed, we're back to the good old-fashioned man-hunt. She can't fly, and she can't swim forever, either. This is a contained area, she can't have gotten far. We'll eventually find tracks."

"Or, if we're lucky, maybe just a body," said Bailey.

"In any case, what we need right now is a logical starting place," said the colonel. "Any ideas?"

"No," said Stryber, "we didn't see any--"

"Not you," said the colonel. He then looked at Rainy. "Any ideas?"

"M--me?" gasped Rainy. "I mean, I--?"

"Did we mention your life is at stake?" asked Tripp, either grinning or scowling--Rainy couldn't tell the difference.

"I don't know!" Rainy said. "I mean, how could I?"

"He's been with us since we got here," said Cavanaugh.

"That's not what I'm asking," said the colonel--in an implications-laden, _knowing _tone.

Rainy felt his heart pounding in his chest. Spaulding was a relative newcomer to the Project. He almost certainly didn't actually know anything. It seemed much more likely that he was trying to testRainy to find out what _he _knew. Rainy would have to lie. The problem was, there wasn't an imagination in the _world _big enough to supply a sufficiently credible one. Could he tell him what his grandfather had told Lara? Wouldn't 'because the prophesies told her to' be just as insane a thing to say? But the colonel was expecting--demanding--an answer.

"She _wanted _to come down here," Rainy partly lied, "I don't know why."

The answer left a more troubled wake than Rainy had expected. There was supposed to have been a battery of follow-up questions, the answers to which he had only the vaguest idea how to invent. Instead there came a cool silence from his captors. It started him wondering just what sort of a tender nerve he might have just struck.

"Do you think the old man told her?" asked Captain Bailey. "Why would he do that?"

The colonel was nodding slowly, and looking at Rainy--though seeming to be gazing through him and into other places, his mind busy.

"A good question," the colonel said.

"Who told her? Told her what?" asked Tripp.

The two senior leaders traded a cabalistic glance.

"Nothing," said the colonel. "It's not important at your level."

But Tripp kept staring--respectfully, but impatiently.

Cavanaugh looked at Doc. _Apparently we're threats to security, too_, his eyes seemed to say.

"Orders, sir?" asked Lieutenant Wallis, who had just arrived; his face still streaked with engine grease.

"Same," said the colonel. "But mounted. Dismount only to fight."

"And keep it tight," added Bailey, looking for and receiving a nod of approval from the colonel. "We're looking for a line of a foot-tracks. As long as we're systematic, we won't lose any time by sticking together. Everyone stay in earshot and run the pattern in overlapping sweeps."

"And rotate," added Sydwinsky, impertinently.

"Yeah, rotate," the captain agreed flatly. "Wallis?"

"Okay," said Wallis. "Ross, Doc; we're up."

Doc grunted, but nodded acquiescently.

"Take a break," said Wallis to Stryber, Sydwinsky, and Sweet. "Break into those rations. Drink some water."

"Sweet, finish Ross's carburetor," said the captain, and Sweet walked toward the fourth motorcycles' unfinished repair work.

When Sweet moved, so did the other soldiers. Wallis, Doc, and Ross mounted and rode away while Tripp approached Rainy and kneeled before him, his machinegun gripped and pointed at his tender twelve-year-old belly. While the others disappeared into the woods, Tripp prodded the boy's stomach indignantly.

"And what'll we do with this one?" Tripp asked.

"Up to him," replied the colonel, adding to Rainy: "What'll it be, Rainy? You can be useful, or..."

"Or not," said Tripp, grinning wickedly.

Cavanaugh stepped behind Rainy and placed a protective hand on his shoulder.

It made Rainy relax slightly--and Tripp recoil.

"What's this..?" Tripp demanded.

"We have an agreement," Cavanaugh explained. "Don't we, Rainy?"

"What kind of an 'agreement'?" asked Bailey, his eyes shifting uneasily.

"If it means fixing my Interlocutor, whatever it is, it's fine with me," said the colonel, adding: "It does mean fixing my Interlocutor, doesn't it, Rainy?"

Rainy hesitated, flustered. On the one hand, he knew the correct answer; but, on the other, he also knew the very different truthful one. The burning question--which was perilously delaying his reply--was whether or not the soldiers would be able to tell the difference.

"I, well, ah, I," he stammered, "that is, I _think_--"

"You _think_?" sneered Tripp.

Rainy sighed, shaking. There was no way around it. He was going to have to tell the truth, and hope.

"The virus rewrote the platform, and the platform's impenetrable," Rainy said, knowing his audience had no idea how suicidal his words were. "I can't splice the working code back in without totally re-installing the operating system."

"We don't like the word 'can't', Rainy," said the colonel.

"Well, I," the boy stammered.

"What _can_ you do?" asked the captain.

_Nothing_, Rainy almost said, but instead a stranger drowned his words in a last-second save.

"The platform's not impenetrable," said the fifty-something-year-old stranger, who had arrived behind Rainy just in time to interrupt him.

"_What?_" asked the captain, the colonel, and Rainy--together--in three-way stereo.

"I broke through it last night," the man said proudly, matter-of-factly.

"But that's imposs..." Rainy whispered, letting his voice trail off, realizing that to argue would be to argue against his own health.

"Getting through the platform was the easy part," he continued. "It's shutting down the virus that's tough. I need to know what the virus looks like. I need information."

Rainy passed his eyes from colonel, to captain, to stranger, to malefactor--and tried rapidly to process their non-verbal messages. The colonel and the captain's faces were blank, open. Rainy guessed that they didn't know what the stranger was actually saying--that they didn't grasp the utter absurdity of it--and that they were simply letting the moment play through. Tripp's face was utterly hateful, but restrained. He, too, had no idea how absurd the stranger's proposition was. And the stranger--the blessed, angelic stranger--only gazed patiently, smiling placidly. But Rainy could see stress-lines in his cheeks. Rainy wasn't the only one playing a bluff in this poker game. It appeared that there might yet be a few more alliances to be made.

"Do you know what to do, Hedgebrook?" asked the captain.

"Yes," Rainy replied hesitantly, looking up at the stranger. "If he's right about the platform. Yes."

Rainy could sense Tripp's sense of opportunity slipping from him. A curse word built within him which would, in the end, be kept silent.

"How long will it take?" demanded the colonel, not allowing an actual reply. "I want my locator problem fixed, Jeremy. I don't want you to waste the whole day babysitting. How quickly can you get through this?"

"I can do it fairly quickly," said the stranger.

"Fine. Then go ahead and get on it," said the colonel. "Keep me apprised."

And then the stranger led Rainy away toward the computer station--gently, by the arm--spouting non-sensical technical jargon as they went.

* * *

It was getting easier to swim.

The water was getting deeper and was accelerating. Other tributaries had joined her once-shallow, white-frothy stream, and it had become stronger and faster. In the beginning, she had worried that they might leave her out of boredom as she creeped along, inch by excruciating inch. But now her worry was that she might lose them entirely, due to her ever-building speed. But, in the end, she found herself duly inspired by the procompthygnathi's diligence, easy entertainability, and, ultimately, their impressive speed. When she spilled into the main water of the large lagoon, where she could finally see the tiny dots that were the black uniforms working on the beach, the compys were right behind her.

Lagging slightly--which was good because it gave her a head start.

* * *

"I don't understand," whispered Rainy. "How did you get past the system's firewall? It's not supposed to be accessible. Not by the systems manager, not by anybody. How did you do it?"

"I didn't," the stranger said, also whispering; sounding nervous enough to make Rainy wince. He was pretending to type on his laptop, but the screen was inactive. He motioned for Rainy to sit next to him and pretend to be doing the same.

"I've been a fool, Rainy," he continued. "I should have known from the first what was really going on. From the first moment I heard about your rebellion here."

"Who are you?" Rainy asked, not looking at his face.

"I'm Major Jeremy Leipig, Technical Security Division," the stranger replied, looking only at the computer's blank screen. "They sent me here to undo the damage you did to the Project's computers."

"You're a Tomb Raider?" Rainy asked. "I don't know you."

The 'Tomb Raiders' was what Rainy and the other Project hackers had called themselves. The nickname had come into use long before he had joined their ranks.

"I'm not a Tomb Raider," the major said. "I'm a technology analyst. I work in the Pentagon."

"The Pentagon?" snapped Rainy, contemptuously. "What do _you_ care what happens to us?"

"I think you had the right idea," the major said. "You just went about it the wrong way."

Rainy was at a pause. He had presumed this major was just another Operations Force goon, assigned by the colonel to cull information from him. To figure out how much of the Project had actually been compromised, and to whom. But this major was saying every word Rainy wanted to hear: With a soldier on his side, his chances of getting out alive multiplied exponentially. Was this a new tactic? Without torture? Without coercion or nasty threats? Could this man be on the level? _Really_ on his side? It seemed too good to be true. It had to be a trick. But it seemed too clever for Spaulding. Too _sneaky_.

"What do you want from me?" Rainy asked, worrying.

"I want you to help me hack Mr. Corbin's secure mainframe."

"What?" he gasped.

From the most clever interrogation he had ever had, it had instantly become the most _absurd_. He could hack into Corbin's systems easily enough, but Corbin had incorporated a form of Project hardware that allowed him to trace any infiltrator right back to his home address, his phone, or even his terminal. To his staff of would-be hackers, he had made his policy concerning his secure server perfectly clear--even if Rainy had never read it because the only place it was displayed was on the screens of those who were caught in the act of defying it; and _those_ hackers were soon unavailable for comment. _Permanently _unavailable. To even _ask_ Rainy to do this was like asking the fish to please bite the hook--hoping it might comply simply because it's been asked so nicely. What was this guy after?

"Are you nuts?" asked Rainy. "Why?"

"Because if we don't," said Leipig, "we'll be fighting World War Three by the end of next year."

That cinched it. It wasn't an interrogation. Rainy felt his dubious grimace fall. He wouldn't have said it so flatly--so _declaratively_--if it were merely a trick. No interrogator would have risked revealing so much. No one who was one of them would have admitted _that_ fact openly. But, even so, being a Pentagon pogue, this man had to be even more of an outsider than Spaulding. How much could he possibly know?

"What are you talking about?" Rainy asked, cautiously.

"I was once in the CIA," the major explained. "I used to analyze political and military data. A few weeks ago, an Agency friend asked me help them analyze some intelligence from the terror attacks against Croft Industries. They knew I was in Mr. Croft's Project, and they hoped I might catch something they'd missed. But my analysis wasn't any better than theirs--because, at the time, I didn't know that the Project was making its own weapons."

He gestured with the magazine-modified MP5 on his shoulder, which was clearly one of the endless-style rounds weapons. Rainy's eyes went wide. The major had obviously assumed that Rainy knew all about them.

"If I had only known," the major continued, self-deprecatingly, "I'd never have--"

But Rainy interrupted him:

"'_Project_'?" he asked, "You mean our Project? The Tomb Raider Project?"

"You don't have to play dumb with me," said the major, making it clear how he sympathized with him. "I know what you've been up to in that hacienda of his. I know why it has to stop. I can help you. I've been putting it together all day."

But Rainy was genuinely puzzled. There were, admittedly, lots of things going on in the Project besides the obvious; but not these endless-style guns. At least, not to his knowledge--and he had assumed he knew everything.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rainy quasi-lied.

But, clearly, the major saw through him. He sighed at Rainy, impatiently.

"I promise you this isn't a fishing expedition," the major said. "There's nothing you can say that I don't already know. When I decide to investigate something, I'm very thorough about it."

And to demonstrate, he thumbed his computer screen to life. Once it was active, he toggled through various images and screens until a web page appeared. Rainy recognized it as the homepage of the Hacienda's internal network server.

"I wasn't expecting a smoking gun--so to speak," punned the major. He giggled a bit at his own bad joke while surfing the Hacienda's hypertext pages. "At least not on-line. But there are minor references like this all throughout your network archives."

He nodded at the screen, where a web log of technical chatter was displayed. Most of the page was administrative rubbish, but Rainy quickly found the relevant passage:

" . . . . _stellargetic particulate reification occurs at 66 efficiency at 7.3749 p-j/cm²_. . . ."

The rest of memo referred to the laboratory conditions the recipients were being instructed to recreate in order to confirm the findings of a previous short-range radio experiment using Landez crystal. The term "stellargetic particulate" appeared only in a footnote under an asterisked reference to the radio field's absolute high and low ranges; a passage marked conspicuously with the bold heading: "DANGER." Rainy knew that "p-j/cm²" meant "potential joules per square centimeter", and that it was a term, indeed, coined by a Tomb Raider--a man who had, at one time, worked only two cubicles down from him.

"The only real blueprints of the weapons are in the Pentagon's Project files," Leipig continued, "but I can easily prove where the foundational technology was actually developed: In Mr. Croft's Los Angeles Hacienda."

While it was true that Landez physics was being used for more than just data analysis, Rainy honestly couldn't see what a simple unit-expression like 'joules per centimeter' had to do with the soldiers' (and Lara's) mysterious new weapons.

"You win," Rainy said. "What the hell is 'stellargetic'?"

"Please," the major groaned. "Are you telling me you honestly didn't know about this?"

"Know what?" Rainy said. "This is Landez. I thought we were talking about machineguns."

"Okay," Leipig said, sighing, clearly becoming annoyed with Rainy's intransigence. "I don't pretend to understand how stellargetics works, okay? But our weapons are just regular guns for the most part. Any gun can be converted over. It's the bullets that are special. They're emitters. They fire tiny energy beams. Landez waves, apparently. They sound like bullets, they leave what looks like bullet-holes--heck, they even have a healthy kick. But each one of these 'bullets' can be fired a million times in a row. A _million times_. That's stellargetics."

"They developed _that_ in the Hacienda?" asked Rainy.

"Didn't they?" the major demanded.

"No!" Rainy insisted. "I mean, how could they? We're working on the Singularities! We're a decoding operation! I mean, okay, Landez isn't exactly…_natural_, true; but it's you guys at the Pentagon who are running the Black Ops show, not us! We don't care about weapons. Why should we?"

"For your boss!"

"What?"

"For David Croft, Rainy!"

"What?" Rainy asked. "Why would David Croft..?"

"I'm on your side," insisted the major. "Why are you still pretending with me?"

"Because I don't know what you're talking about," said Rainy, honestly.

"Look," the major sighed, "the CIA already knows what Mr. Corbin is trying to do to Croft Industries."

"What are talking about?" asked Rainy.

"The terrorist attacks!" the major said. "Are you honestly saying you didn't know he was behind them?"

Rainy's eyes went wide. _That _was a terrifying thought.

"The CIA's known for weeks. They just can't move on him without cause," the major continued. "He's too well protected from within the Agency. No one's willing to believe what's right before their eyes. Even I didn't really believe it before today. There's just no solid proof. More to the point, there's no motive. Against his own obvious interests, Corbin just wants to _crush _Croft Industries."

"He _runs_ Croft Industries!" protested Rainy.

"But he wants to get rid of Mr. Croft," the major said.

"Why?"

"The CIA isn't sure," the major said. "All they know was that it has to be something big. Really big. It's all in the money. Corbin makes one financial chess-move that doesn't make any sense, and Croft's legal estate makes another, to counter. They've been dancing around each other like there's been some big elephant in the room that no one but them sees. It's these weapons. If the CIA had known about them, they would have put it together instantly. Listen: In intelligence analysis, it's all about timing. Cause and effect. There are no coincidences. Something had to have happened just beforehand that set the stage for these terrorist attacks that wasn't happening before the attacks began. Economically, politically, ethically, nothing in Croft Industries has actually changed in the past few years; but the attacks suddenly began, about six weeks ago. And Mr. Croft and Mr. Corbin have been cooperating in this Project for nearly eighteen years. So, why the fight now?"

Rainy wasn't sure his question was rhetorical, but he thought it wise to treat it as though it were.

"Here's why," the major continued. "Think about this: This Singularity around us right now is producing Landez amplitudes that go off the scale. _Way_ off the scale. The Tomb Raider Singularity doesn't have anywhere near this much energy. No doubt you Tomb Raiders knew that, but the CIA didn't. No one else did. I think that once the Project started processing signals from _this _site, all of the little anomalies and artifacts that make stellargetics possible became _salient _in the Landez data. At some point or another, I think this data _suggested_ that a form of weaponized Landez could be developed. Croft, or Corbin, or both, started tinkering and experimenting; and, in the years that followed, these working prototypes gradually evolved. Today, they have an _arsenal_ of these weapons in storage. I've read the inventory. Big ones. Small ones. Most of them perfected within the last six weeks. Six weeks! The same time the terror attacks began against Croft Industries. Coincidence? I think that Mr. Croft intends to _market _stellargetics. He'd revolutionize munitions for all time and make an absolute fortune. That's why Mr. Corbin wants him out of the picture: He wants to keep them in the black. For his _own _use."

"No. No," Rainy said. "David Croft doesn't deal in weapons! I can't imagine that!"

"Don't presume that just because he's a nice old man he isn't a ruthless entrepreneur," the major said. "Business is business. You go where the money is. Rainy, it's the only analysis that makes sense of the facts. Whatever is driving this fight is _big_. That's a fact. And with these weapons, the stakes are right, the timing's right--the pieces all _fit_. Last September (coincidentally, right after the date when they test-fired their first successful prototype), Mr. Croft showed up at the White House to see the President. He was trying to get the Project out into the open. No one understood what he was trying to accomplish by this. If the truth had actually come out, it would have ruined him."

"He was trying to shut Corbin down!" Rainy said. He remembered the incident well.

"Don't be so naive!" said the major. "Mr. Croft is not dumb. There had to be a pay-off somewhere. Some kind of _benefit_. It's about the weapons, Rainy. He knew what he was doing. If the Project comes out of the black, it automatically becomes a national security issue--not only to the NSA, but to the Department of Defense. And if the DoD gets wind of these things, you _know _they'll want them. A _lot_ of them. Exclusive access to as many of them as can be mass-produced, and at any price the manufacturer demands. So, who do you think would get the contract? The lowest bidder? Please. Mr. Croft practically bought most of those bureaucrats their jobs. He's been putting them in place for years. He may _say_ he tried to end the Project because of Mr. Corbin's 'abuses', but you'd have to be a fool to believe it. Thank God your grandfather stepped in when he did."

Rainy had now heard enough to know the limits of this major's knowledge. It was less than his own, and was different in obvious key places, but it _was_ considerable. Still, without certain key facts, which Rainy was now sure he did not possess, there was nothing he could uncover in Corbin's server that could possibly empower him to do anything effective against him. Corbin's plan had progressed too far. No amount of proof in the world could stop him now. And he was even better 'protected' than this major could possibly imagine.

"Let's pretend for just a second that you're right--and you're not," Rainy said. "I mean, let's even forget about the CIA and all this money stuff. We're talking about Jacob Corbin and David Croft. Two of the last people in the world that you or me or anyone would ever want to fuck with, ever. _Ever_."

"I know," said the major, direly.

"For gods' sake," Rainy snapped. "We're talking about the most secure network computer in the world. The _whole _world. I knew six other people who wanted to do what you're saying, and you know where it got _them_."

"Rainy," said the major, "I'm sorry about your friends. But I doubt they knew what to look for. Or what to do with it. I'm with the CIA. I know what I'm doing. I promise you it will be different this time."

"Because you're CIA?" sneered Rainy. "Man, spooks are like multivitamins to this guy. He pops half a dozen of you a day just for the principle of it."

"Maybe," said the major. "But not hackers."

Rainy was listening.

"Rainy, there's a whole network of people out there, just itching to take him down," the major said. "Even the colonel is against him. But no one can touch him. Why not? Because they don't have any proof to back up their suspicions, and they can't get past his network security to get it. But you can. You're the sharpest hacker I've ever seen. You're the key."

"The key? The key to what?" sneered Rainy. "What could possibly be in there?"

"The location of _his_ stellargetics factory," the major said--effectively silencing Rainy's protests.

"_Corbin's_ factory?" Rainy asked.

Could that be true? Did Corbin have his own show? Beyond what even Rainy knew?

"That's the real reason he doesn't want Mr. Croft signing a deal," the major continued. "I think he's already in mass-production. Not in the Hacienda, obviously. But somewhere. Somewhere _else_."

Rainy's heart was racing.

"Corbin building guns? Jesus. For what?"

"I don't know yet," said the major. "Something under the radar. Something we don't know about."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet, Rainy," the major said. "But whomever Mr. Corbin hired to attack Mr. Croft's holdings is _using_ stellargetics. The CIA thinks so, too--though not in so many words. The details of the attacks make a whole lot more sense once your add stellargetics to the equation. If it's true, it means that Corbin has his own supply of stellargetic weapons--and a very considerable one. He's not using Croft's prototypes, that's for sure. He's manufacturing them somewhere, on his own. The attacks and the smear campaign are meant to collapse Mr. Croft's financial empire because Croft is the only thing standing between him and possessing the only stellargetic arsenal in the world. I have no idea what he's planning, but it scares the living hell out of me."

"Me, too," admitted Rainy.

"Get me into his server, Rainy," the major said. "You can do it. I know you can."

"Yeah, I know I _can_," Rainy said. "But they'll be on us in a second. Jacob Corbin is even more dangerous than you think, and Croft has resources _everywhere_. They're untouchable, no matter _what_ you can prove."

"Not necessarily," the major explained. "They're only invulnerable because they're protected by the bureaucracy of the Executive Branch: The NSA and the Department of Defense. So long as the Federal Government supports the Project in principle, Corbin has _carte blanche _to do whatever he sees fit to administrate it. We may not be able to take him down directly, or through the courts, but if the Executive Branch revokes his _carte blanche_, he's through. We won't go through the bureaucracy. We'll take what we know directly to the President. He's the commander-in-chief. He can overrule anything that happens in the Pentagon. And I know him pretty well--he's a smart man. He'll act. If we can get concrete intelligence to him--names, addresses--he'll _seize_ the Singularities. If we can prove these manufacturing facilities exist and where they are, he'll immediately send in the troops. He'll confiscate _all_ of the stellargetic prototypes, and he'll see to it that no one in the DoD ever hears about them. What the Department of Defense doesn't know about, the NSA can't coerce him to mass-produce. We overcome bureaucratic oversight and stop Mr. Corbin before Mr. Croft or anyone can do anything about it. Stellargetics just _vanishes_--like the Ark of Covenant in that movie. What do you say?"

"Let's see," said Rainy, satirically--although the irony was lost on the major--"Hack into the most secure network computer in the whole world and steal secrets from the most dangerous man on the planet. Sounds great. Where do I sign? Not!"

"Rainy, please!" said the major.

"You just don't get it, do you?" said Rainy.

"What don't you understand?" the major demanded.

"Look around you, man," Rainy said. "I am surrounded by my enemies--_you're_ one of them! If I could tap into some random phone line out of someone's basement, maybe, but here? We have _no _chance. Corbin has safeguards on his network that I don't even _understand_. You might as well dial up him directly--cause that's how fast he'll catch on."

"I understand that."

"That's easy for you to say," said Rainy. "They'll _kill_ me!"

"They'll kill me, too," said the major.

"What are you talking about?" said Rainy. "You're one of them. You're a soldier. You're--"

"Expendable," the major said. "Expendable is what I am. And right now, talking to you, trying to undo this mess, I'm making myself more and more expendable by the second. They may put a bullet through your head, Rainy Hedgebrook, but it'll be mine right afterward."

"They'd shoot you?" asked Rainy. He honestly hadn't considered that possibility.

"You bet they would," the major said. "These men were hand picked by Jacob Corbin for their loyalty--not to their country, but to their Project. To them, I'm just as much of an outsider as you are. They'd kill me in a second."

"Then why?" asked Rainy.

"Stellargetics isn't just some new weapon," the major said. "It's a quantum leap. It's too much and too fast. It's like jumping to the MAC-10 from the crossbow. Jacob Corbin and David Croft have no concept. If it stays in the black, we can ease the world into it; but how do you think an Islamist or Communist dictatorship would respond if they knew America was about to _mass-produce_ these things? They would never allow us to gain that kind of an advantage. They would throw everything they've _got_ at us first. Washington D.C., L.A., New York, Detroit--they'll hit anyplace where there's manufacturing or development capability. Every fundamentalist regime, every terrorist and warlord in the world will band together to make sure stellargetics _never _happens. They'll do whatever it takes, whatever it costs. Whether it's a Chinese missile or a Russian briefcase bomb. If we can uncover Croft's plans, Rainy, you better believe _they _can. Especially with Mr. Corbin using the weapons recklessly all over the place. If it gets out of the black, we can't put it back. Rainy, it's not 'if', it's _when _will the nuking start. Unless we stop it. For God's sake, we're the only two who know! Why am I doing this? How can you even ask me that?"

Rainy was stunned. He didn't quite know how to react. Or what to say. "Wow" was all came out.

"Yeah, 'wow'," said the major. "Now, will you help me? Or do we die for no reason at all?"

Rainy didn't have to think about it much longer.

"Alright, switch us on."

* * *

Doc didn't want to be alone, but there was no arguing with Wallis once his mind was made up.

The way Wallis saw it, there were three bikes, so there should be three separate patrol areas. It was a rather cut-and-dry matter to the man. Of course, Wallis hadn't been in the woods when Byrd and Mitch had been hit. He hadn't heard their screams the way he and Cavanaugh had heard them: from within the same damned woods, seeing the same damned green foliage that the two screaming soldiers must have been seeing, camouflaging whatever it was that was killing them. To Wallis, this place was still nothing more than an area of operations, so Doc could almost forgive him for sending him out there into that slaughter yard all alone.

Almost, but not _quite_.

He had been riding his motorcycle slowly among the tree-trunks when he first began to notice how some patches of foliage stood taller than others. How some patches seemed _smashed_. How there was a definite pattern to it: A flat spot, a normal spot, a flat spot, a normal spot. But it took his noticing how the branches of the trees overhead had also been broken and pushed aside to make him realize how the flat spots were in two rows--a right-side row and at left-side row--alternating like footprints. They were, in fact, even _shaped _like feet. Like clawed feet. Like ten-foot-long clawed feet.

He slowed and killed his engine. He cursed slowly:

"What in the fuck..?"

He didn't want to think about what it might mean. All he knew was that he was all alone, refusing to pretend he wasn't afraid. Refusing to pretend that he wasn't angry at Lieutenant Wallis for sending him out there, all by himself.

"Patrol leader," he said into his headset, "what the fuck, over?"

"_What do you got, Doc?_" asked the inanely cocky-sounding Lieutenant Wallis.

But at that moment Doc noticed a smaller pattern of matted spots in the already-flattened soil. They, too, were footprints. Or claw-prints. Or paw-prints. Or_ whatever_. They seemed to be clear indications that this place had been visited by the unnatural pitter-patter of little feet. The pitter-patter, it would seem, of _tens of thousands_ of unnatural little feet. Either they were following the giant, or the giant was following them. One way or the other, the direction both were heading couldn't possibly be clearer.

"God_damn_," he hissed.

* * *

"What are you talking about?" demanded the colonel, suddenly, slowly standing.

"What is it?" asked the captain, still seated at the map-table.

The captain pushed his headset back into his ears, but it was too late. He had missed hearing whatever it had been that had made the usually impenetrable colonel stiffen.

The captain asked again: "What is it?"

"Shut up!" snapped the colonel, fiercely; transmitting quickly, "Are you sure?"

"_Colonel, when have I ever bullshitted you about anything?_" said Doc's voice, deadly seriously.

"Get back here," the colonel said, while his captain stared at him with an increasingly troubled, bewildered expression. "Wallis? You copying?"

"_Roger, Colonel_," said Wallis' voice, "_on our way_."

"What?" demanded the captain.

"Game time," said the colonel, walking into the clearing, where he was joined by Sweet, Cavanaugh, and Tripp.

"The girl?" asked the captain, also following.

"Fuck no," the colonel said, facing the other soldiers, who--by their ghastly expressions--had clearly overheard the entire incredible transmission. He told them: "We make our stand here, in the open."

"Yes, sir," said Cavanaugh.

"Stand against _what_?" demanded Captain Bailey.

"Jeremy? Leipig!" Spaulding demanded through his headset, staring at where the major was still working, seated on the opposite side of clearing, ignorant and oblivious, clearly having switched off his radio. He dared not shout any louder--for fear of--for fear that--

"Stand against what?" snapped the exasperated captain.

"Get that fucking fool online!" ordered the colonel.

"Yes, sir," said Cavanaugh.

He trotted off toward Leipig and Rainy with Tripp following, a few steps behind.

"Sweet," the colonel said.

"Sir?" asked Sweet.

"The bank," said the colonel starkly. "Guard post. Chop-chop."

And while the soldier quickly ambled toward the river bank, assuming a fighting position near the space-capsule-like Interlocutor, the captain glared urgent eyes upon his still-uncooperative superior. He was prepared to scream 'What?' at the top of his lungs, but he settled instead for a furious stare into his face.

"Whatever hit Mitch and Bryd out there," the colonel finally told him, "it's _big_. And it's coming this way."

It took a moment to sink in; but once it did, he took to his part of the preparations with just as much haste and trepidation as the colonel.

* * *

There was commotion in the camp.

And while there certainly _ought_ to have been commotion, Lara hadn't expected it to begin quite so soon. She'd only just arrived--crawling out of the canyon river and slinking into the underbrush.

The fact that she could hold her breath for a very long time was a point of her physiology which she had rarely taken advantage of. She had always presumed the talent was a cardio-vascular side-effect of her athleticism, and that she had probably trained it into herself inadvertently, along with her other, more conventional aerobic talents. She had never timed herself, but imagined she could spend at least two or three good minutes underwater without discomfort. It was a useful skill to have sometimes. She had always made a point of keeping it in her back pocket until she needed something 'extra' to surprise her opponents with.

This day had been a case in point.

From swimming beneath the river to avoid Uncle Jake's machineguns, to diving beneath the undercut rocks at the cauldron waterfall, today had been a day for holding her breath. And _still_ her opponents hadn't figured out her trick. She'd just swam right past them, right past their beach-front base, and had come up on the other side. Even as she crawled from the waters and began to stalk her way between the trees along the edge of the base's woodline, they had no idea how near she was--how near she could get--because all of their look-out and guard positions were designed against someone who would be approaching from inland.

_Foolish, foolish men._

She began to count them, and range them, and read them--but then stopped.

For Lara, it was only reflexive to visually reconnaissance the camp. To note the two men in guard-positions on either side of the clearing farthest-inland; the men in black's leaders consulting over a crate-table that probably had a map on it; and her target, Rainy, apparently being forced to remedy his computer virus, sitting with still another man in black in the middle of everything. It was simply a natural reflex to begin codifying these images, to begin drawing up mental plans. But it was an impulse she knew she had to resist. Any plans she made would soon be meaningless. Things in the camp were already in flux, and the _real_ chaos hadn't even begun yet.

Still, there were three targets she had to strongly consider zeroing. These were the three men in black immediately surrounding Rainy: The two who had just gone to him, and who were standing over him; and the one who was seated alongside him, directing and supervising him. Watching them, Lara maneuvered herself into position in the woodline, half-way between the water and the guard positions, and climbed up to the first branch of a tree for a vantage. She took aim with one of her pistols, and waited for the fireworks to begin.

* * *

It had easily been some of Rainy's best work.

And he had to admit he was disappointed with Corbin. After all of his bluster about his secured server, it hadn't been all that hard to tunnel past his firewalls and get into his hidden databases. It might take some time to reconstruct the raw data, but Rainy had lifted Corbin's encryption protocols, too. Emulating the platform on his own computer and perusing its contents would be just as easy as stealing credit card numbers from Sears. In the meantime, he would package and compress the data for an upload to the White House's secure server--the HTTP of which Major Jeremy Leipig just happened to know by heart. He wondered what the President and his cabinet would think when they realized that a civilian had diverted more than a billion dollars to the construction of a secret underground facility on government land. Or that he had kidnapped illegal immigrants and had used them as slave labor during construction. Moreover, he wondered what they would think when they looked at his facility's blue prints and realized what he was actually manufacturing out there. Even the major had been stunned by that.

Unfortunately, it did not look like either the President or his cabinet would ever see it.

"What's the problem, Rainy?"

"It won't send," Rainy whispered, typing at the same time, "I'll try it again, but--"

Rainy had ensured that he had downloaded everything before Corbin's crack network security caught on to them, but something, indeed was going wrong. They had compressed their files on a flashram card and had been attempting to upload its contents, but their attempts to send the encrypted files through the internet simply weren't working. It didn't make sense--unless--!

"Hurry! We're out of time!" Major Leipig said. The colonel had urgently called his name, and there were two soldiers meanly approaching. They would surely demand an explanation that the major couldn't give, such as why it was that his computer's ears were plugged into his radio instead of his own.

"No!" hissed Rainy, "it stopped again!"

"Then eject it, quick!" ordered the major, "I've got to shut down!"

The moment Rainy cleared the card from its dock, Leipig terminated the power to the laptop and yanked his headphone wires from its modem jack. He was finished just before the soldiers arrived and walked behind him, where they would have seen everything. Rainy slipped the card into a hard plastic case and the major discretely pocketed it.

"Major, have you got commo?" asked Cavanaugh, brusquely.

"No; I thought it'd be too distracting, I just--"

"Well, you need to _get_ online, sir," Cavanaugh demanded. "_Now_."

"What is it?"

But at that same moment, Cavanaugh began to receive radio traffic and ignored the major's question. He put his hand over his earpiece and turned slightly away, listening, and then replying: "No, nothing." At the same time, he looked across the clearing toward Sweet, and watched while the water-guard shook his head, apparently confirming Cavanaugh's assumption that nothing had happened yet.

The major hastily adjusted his radio into his ear. Rainy was close enough to overhear Sweet's voice saying, "--_thing yet. Is this for real?_"

"_You're goddamned right, it's real_," said Doc's voice. "_Keep your eyes open, Sweet. You ain't going to fucking to believe this._"

"I already don't believe it," said Cavanaugh, adding: "What's your ETA?"

"_A minute, a minute thirty, maybe_," replied Wallis' voice. "_Stand-by_."

"Believe what?" asked the major innocently.

"What's going on?" asked Rainy, already trembling.

Cavanaugh ignored the questions.

"Tripp, you've got guard here," Cavanaugh said. "Major, we're going to need everyone who's able back at the bank."

"Of course," said the major, standing, nodding his apologies to Rainy.

"Hey!" snapped Tripp, clearly angry at the insinuation that he was not 'able'.

"No offense," Cavanaugh said, "but you're broke. Stay here. Watch Rainy."

"Alright, I got it," conceded Tripp.

"Rainy," said Cavanaugh while the major joined him at his side, "I know what you're thinking, but don't try it. _Trust me_." He and the major then started for the bank, where the other soldiers were massing for action.

"Hey, you guys!" said Tripp, calling after them. "Watch yourselves."

Cavanaugh and the major both paused to return meaningful glances to him, but while Tripp did notice how the major's expression was more meaningful than that which his aloof countenance usually projects, he failed to notice how the look had been intended for Rainy rather than for himself--which perhaps explained why he discounted it. He also didn't notice Rainy's nodding back and sealing their quiet alliance.

"What's going on?" Rainy asked.

"Alright, Shrimp," said Tripp rudely, "unless you want to wind up Tripp Flambé, you sit there, you shut up, and you--"

But then Tripp suddenly stopped talking.

"What?" demanded Rainy, realizing Tripp was frozen, gazing past him, over his head, toward the woods. He tried to stand--to turn around and look--but the soldier's hand shoved him back down.

"Sit down!" snapped Tripp, holding the boy by his shoulder, but still staring past him. "What in the fuck..?"

"What!" moaned Rainy, squirming to turn around.

"Don't move!" insisted Tripp, virtually pleading. He timidly squeaked into his microphone: "Colonel, you seeing this?"

* * *

"Seeing what?"

But by that time, he had turned his back to his soldiers and the waterside, and could see them for himself. From his distance, they were only blurry gray and brown shapes, but they were hopping along gaily, like over-sized flightless finches, standing about two-feet tall--quitting the dark edge of the woodline to fill the space aft of their base-clearing. There must have been _thousands _of them.

"Get out of there!"

* * *

Doc was listening to the screams on the radio, dodging trees and large shrubs on his motorcycle, fighting to get back to the camp. Still, even though he gunned the engine, even though he whipped through the forest like a stunt driver dodging cones--at speeds too insanely fast to recount--even though he arrived only seconds later--

--even though--

He still arrived only just in time to see his worst fears becoming chillingly real.

* * *

Tripp released Rainy's shoulder in order to take a more commanding grip of his machinegun.

Free, Rainy wiggled loose and span--and saw them.

They were all over the place: A herd of tiny dinosaurs, swarming into the clearing. He was reminded of a nature video he'd seen where a pack of kangaroos were tromping across the Australian plains. Also of the pack of mutts he'd once cared for, back on the reservation. He would sound his feeding call, and they would come dashing toward him all at once, converging upon the porch of his house. These dinosaurs were like that: Clearly converging on something. It was uncanny. But no dog nor kangaroo ever traveled in a pack this huge. Nor did any have so many vicious, sharp, little teeth.

Astounded, stunned, overwhelmed, and terrified, Rainy sucked in a breath to scream, but held it instead, scrambling backwards. He spilled over the desk, the computer, the chair--head over heels--to land behind the crates, opposite the invasion.

Even while Rainy struggled to crawl away, Tripp span fully, to face the monsters. But they were everywhere, and too close, and too many--and he never got off a shot.

* * *

Lara was ready to act--to move.

She dropped from her perch as the procompsthygnathus hoard began to spill into the clearing, readying her pistols, preparing to lunge into action. But as quickly as she was ready to move, she was foiled. It was suddenly too late! Rainy's sentry was stammering in terror, and not defending himself. He was instantly consumed into the carnivorous tidal wave. They leaped over him, over the scattered crate-desk; all over Rainy--

And they--and they--

"Damn!"

* * *

"They're not attacking!" announced the colonel, decisively commanding: "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!"

"_Hold_ fire?" gasped Leipig.

The major was one of many gaping at their colonel in incredulous horror.

"I know what I'm doing!" insisted Spaulding, shouting again, "Hold all fire! Hold all fire!"

"_I hope you really do know what the fuck you're doing_," whispered Tripp's voice into everyone's headset, his voice conveying the terror they could all imagine him feeling, being surrounded, being inundated, _being alone_, beneath the stampede pouring down all around him.

"I do!" said the colonel. "They've never seen people before! They don't know _what_ we are! Just don't provoke them! Nobody move!"

* * *

"Damn!" said Lara.

They weren't attacking.

Her plan was falling apart. The compys weren't attacking the men in black, and the men in black weren't being distracted by the compys! This was an unexpected complication, to say the least. There was no way to liberate Rainy without everyone seeing! What was worse, with the compys on the same dry land as she, and so confoundingly disinterested in the smorgasbord she had prepared for them, it was only a matter of seconds before they would turn her way and she would be forced to retreat from them herself!

Itching to do something, to take some action, to do _anything_ before it all went to hell, Lara almost betrayed herself--but at the last instant, she didn't. She simply froze. Stunned.

And watched.

Watched...

* * *

"_Nobody move!_" said the colonel, and Sweet could see him standing with his arms out to his sides; either to seem unaggressive to the dinosaurs, or to transmit a passive attitude to his men, or both. He was trying to remain calm and collected, but the harried breath Sweet heard over the radio broadcasted his uneasiness plainly.

Meanwhile, the dinosaurs tromped around them, arriving in droves, hopping about and between their legs, their heads at knee-level. The little creatures bobbed and ambled about the beach, seemingly randomly. They danced along, halting their advance a few feet short of the water and flowing back upon themselves; turning circles, searching, and--finally--_converging_.

"What the fuck..?" said Sweet, standing right next to the plastic-wrapped Interlocutor device--where the thickest crowd of dinosaurs had begun to thicken still more. "What the fuck..!"

"_Stand fast, soldier!_" said the colonel.

"Sir..?" Sweet gasped, holding deathly still, but staring at the little monsters while they swarmed around the Interlocutor. They ignored him--but he could feel their warm, rough bodies brushing across his shins as they rushed by.

"_Maybe they're curious_," the colonel whispered. "_Maybe they're just thirsty_..."

But none of them were approaching the water, and the grand majority of them were either wandering about, disinterested in anything, or were pooling near Sweet--hyper-focused on the Interlocutor. The colonel might already have been rethinking his tactics, but it was the dinosaurs themselves who made his next move clear for him.

"Oh, fuck--!" gasped Sweet, as the dinosaurs, dozens at a time, suddenly leaped into the air.

Sweet almost screamed as they flew, but they weren't landing on him. They were landing on the Interlocutor. They started listening to it--placing their little heads against it. And they started tasting it. Biting it. Digging their little jaws, mouths, and faces into the plastic covering it. They kept leaping on it--wave after wave of them. They dug into it like rats eating their way into a statue carved from meat. They seemed bent on consuming it, devouring it, by insatiable committee--the plastic, the metal, the rubber--impossibly, by hook or by crook!

"_Alright_," the colonel finally said, "_that's enough!_"

And Leipig and Cavanaugh and Bailey and Spaulding started firing.

Sweet did, too. He focused his attention, his hate, and his horror upon the fiendish, ghoulish creatures' obsessed little monster-faces. He tried to blast the dinosaurs from the sides of the Interlocutor in deliberate swaths, without directly damaging the panels underneath. But the dinosaurs only begrudgingly acknowledged his shots. They seemed to bounce off their hides. Even at full-auto fire, it hardly budged them!

On the ground, all around the soldiers, the dinosaurs swarmed, hopping aimlessly, carelessly, despite the rounds being murderously hurled toward them. Machinegun fire swept back and forth across their thronging bodies, causing them little or no apparent injury. The soldiers were spraying their bullets wildly and foolishly, persevering in their mistaken assumption that tiny size should equal tiny toughness.

In frustration, Cavanaugh and Bailey began to punt at the tiny abhorrences with their army boots; finding, for a time, some limited satisfaction in seeing the little kick-balls soar. They continued kicking at them until it suddenly, finally, dawned upon them that they should concentrate their machinegun fire upon them one at a time. Both men came to the same conclusion at once and each opened up on a different dinosaur. But, even this way, it took long, long seconds to kill even those two animals. And they couldn't help but also count the animals.

Seeing and admiring their kick-game, Sweet mimicked it by swinging the nozzle of his weapon like a broom stick or a club, hoping to whack some of the monsters off of the Interlocutor's side panels. His best result, however, was only to distract one or two of them, causing them to rear back and hiss at him. And then something stung his hand--hurting it terribly, making it bleed.

One of the little monsters had bitten him. He felt his tendons newly weak from the assault; the muscles twitching and failing. But the pain could hardly distract him. After an instant, Sweet's eyes went back to the Interlocutor, where they saw the face of the biter. It gazed only at him now, forgetting the Interlocutor. It was suddenly bright-eyed and comprehending, licking its red-glazed chops.

Before he could realize what was happening, not only his malefactor, but _most _of the tiny dinosaurs on the Interlocutor had instantly taken notice of him--abruptly jerking their heads in his direction and gazing out at him with those same bright, comprehending eyes--full of eagerness and expectation. It was as though, somehow, the biter had whispered to them of the taste of the blood in its mouth. They had all begun to salivate and lick their chops as though, like first one's, their mouths were also full of red delicious blood.

They went up like a tidal wave, a dozen at a time, leaping simultaneously, instantly, into the air. They came down on him like artillery on a foxhole, pounding at him in wave after wave of scratching, biting animals. He went down in a screaming heap, his weapon worse than useless--trapping and then breaking his fingers. His body was pummeled into the mud, and he was instantly buried in monsters.

* * *

Tripp was watching the last of the swarm passing harmlessly by when he heard Sweet's truncated scream. While spinning to face the shore, he simultaneously noticed both how the last of the creatures had just leaped past him, and how his vantage was beginning to plummet. His body was falling. It took another second to realize that he had just been shot.

On the ground, his face freshly splashed with his own blood, he saw the neat new hole punched through his same wounded shoulder, destroying the arm completely. That same instant, he realized that had he not spun to face the shore just then, the hole would have been through his chest, instead. It was poor consolation, however, when he could see that in his knee-jerk reaction he had tossed his weapon fully out of reach--especially when he saw that Lara Croft was running toward him with a smoking gun in each of her hands.

"Damnit, not again!" he wailed.

Lara collected Rainy and dashed away--the boy in tow like a skier behind a speed-boat.

* * *

There was a moment of incredulous pause when Sweet went down. They could hear him screaming, and yet there was nothing that could be done. The dinosaurs could not be shot, could not be frightened, could not even be kicked. Sweet's only chance was to have each monster pried off of the fleshy, bleeding mess he was swiftly becoming--pried off by hand--and no one had the will left within him to dare to touch their impenetrable skins. Meanwhile, a new batch of them had suddenly begun to crawl across the Interlocutor; covering it again, inch for inch.

As though the colonel were not already feeling hopeless enough, the calls then came:

First: "_Damnit! Not again!_"

Which drew his eyes up from the swarm to search the clearing, where they saw Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook escaping into the river farther up the bank--on one of the Operation's Force's own patrol rafts. But, before he could react, he received the second call:

It said: "_Colonel, look out!_"

The voice was Doc's, and it's message was punctuated by the huge, black shadow that fell over them all.

* * *

Sweet heard screams that weren't his own.

It was difficult to discern them through ears and sinuses filled with blood, but he was sure.

Convinced he was then going to die, Sweet had become strangely more susceptible to the sounds and happenings around him. During the time he was still fighting the mob of dinosaurs who were chewing him alive, he could only barely sense that there was anything else going on in the universe other than his own suffering. But, after he had given up all hope and had stopped struggling, after he was laying still and just letting the monsters bite, and chew, and scratch, after that, he had become uncommonly attuned. Suddenly, there was wasn't as much pain as before. That is, there wasn't as much _fresh_ pain.

For what seemed like several seconds, Sweet let himself believe his lifeforce had finally ebbed. That life was finally over. That his journey into what was beyond was about to begin. He let himself chuckle quietly at the irony that an atheist like himself should end up experiencing so perfectly consciously his afterlife; able, as in life, to contemplate and question its substance.

The true irony, however, was how this same quiet chuckle caused the muscles between his ribs to ache--which caused him realize that he wasn't dead at all. The monsters had left him. He could move his arms and legs. He could even sit upright. The only thing that puzzled him was the damnable darkness was still consuming him. Had they gobbled his eyes?

It was then that he realized that his eyes were simply closed, and he opened them. He found, however, that the darkness persisted despite. In the next second, he glanced around to see the last of the small dinosaurs vanishing into the woods and brush. He also saw his friends backing away from him in terror. And, finally, he saw a terrible, dripping wet, horrible mouth--_a mouth the size of a Volkswagen_--blocking off the light overhead.

After that, he really did begin his journey to the Beyond--and this time, it was no laughing matter.

* * *

While the men in black were scuffling and fussing over the procompsthygnathies, Lara had dragged Rainy to an unguarded raft and had made her escape. Without looking back, she moved so quickly and decisively--from dropping Rainy's sentry, to cutting the bowline and shoving the raft into the current--that they had hardly a chance to even notice her infiltration, let alone make a concerted effort to stop her. She doubted they had even realized she had come and gone; doubted they would even soon realize that Rainy was missing.

It would be quite some time before they would be able to fend off her little fan club in any case, she imagined.

The plan had come together despite her best efforts. She couldn't imagine why the compys had switched from chasing her--which would have ruined her plan--to attacking the moonlander thing. It would be something to speculate about later. One of the many of questions she would have to ask if she ever found her way out of this cavern system alive. In the meantime, there was the escape itself to consider, and Lara had given it its due thought.

In time, Rainy asked after her plan.

He asked only after several minutes of listening to the men in black's machineguns ripping up the tranquility of the cavern in the distance, during a moment of awkward silence that both would have agreed needed to be filled with conversation about something.

"Lara, where are we going?"

And Lara replied with the profound, highly technical answer she had been silently practicing for over an hour:

"Where the water goes, Rainy; we're going where the water goes."


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Where The Water Goes

**INSTRUMENTAL: "Warrior's Suite." Second Movement.**

**--Unknown **

(Original Television Soundtrack:

_Rurouni Kenshin_.)

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN:** **"**Where The Water Goes.**"**

They had driven it away.

Somehow, by some miracle, their combined machinegun fire had made the thing leave.

The water surface, despite its hardy currents, still rippled unevenly where the creature's incredible, unbelievably huge mass had disappeared back beneath the river. All became quiet again after the thing had leaped clear of the beach; all except the heavy, harried, breaths of all of the surviving men clustered in their terrified little cluster, clutching their burning hot little weapons, staring after the vanished thing in aghast.

What was left of Sweet was nothing more than a bloody puddle of mush in the beach's mud. The hot puddle had lumps of shattered bone or other chucked remainders breaking up its texture, settling where they had dribbled over the gums of the gaping mouth that had chomped down the rest. The bloody and other fluids were quickly absorbing into the soil, making the chunks seem to writhe, rise, and settle into place.

Spaulding didn't know that he had been screaming. He had believed the howls he had been hearing were coming from the monster itself--an appropriate accompaniment to the image of the thing's giant, toothy face in his mind. He had lost himself in the counter-offensive, pouring more sheer psychology than he had had to spare into keeping himself firing only at the target--and not also at the threatening trees looming over his head, or at his own men for being too close, or simply at himself, for that matter. Now that it was over, he felt his sanity only slowly creeping back to him, only begrudgingly returning him his thoughts. Nearly sane again, he quickly realized how wildly his flesh was quivering all over his skeleton, and he swiftly fought to suppress it.

"_Fuck!_" was all Ross could muster--his 'f'-sound extended nearly a full second while his lips and cheeks trembled to push out the rest of the curse.

"We got it!" proclaimed Sydwinsky, obviously prematurely.

"No we didn't," sneered Stryber, disparagingly--it apparently as clear to him as to Spaulding that the thing hadn't died, but rather had only tactically retreated. It was obvious to everyone else that the thing would be back.

It made them shudder to their bones. _The thing would be back_.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" said Ross, lunging toward the motorcycle he had discarded nearby. As the other riders, Doc and Wallis, began to do the same, the entire cluster of men began to agitate; clearly preparing, almost madly, to fight each other for a claim on one of the too-few rides.

Even Spaulding was moving at first; but then he, and then Wallis, noticed that Leipig hadn't yet budged. He was staring. He was staring into the woods. Quickly, the colonel saw it, too. Saw _them_.

"Fuck," Captain Bailey whispered, noticing Spaulding noticing the woods.

Thousands of little eyes on hundreds of little faces. The smaller ones were back. When the monster had arrived, they had scattered in the woods; but, now that it was gone, they were returning. They were glancing around, clearly looking for signs of the gargantuan menace; clearly unconcerned with the men and their guns. That reminded the colonel (returning him, finally, fully to sanity) about the Interlocutor.

About the mission.

"Wait!" said the colonel; and the mental clarity in his tone returned them all to their disciplined, soldiers' minds. They stopped panicking, paused, and awaited command.

* * *

There wasn't much flavor in his mouth.

After eating, there would usually be a delicious after-taste, flavored thickly with the globs of dinner that invariably remained wedged between his teeth. This time, however, there was nothing. Only the vague, empty sensation of a moist, spongy _something_ gumming up his jaws. The river water he used wash it down was more tasty than the prey animal itself had been; and the disappointment of it set his mind back upon its original interest: The singularly immense source of Nourishment he had been chasing all day. That source had fled from the shore just he had arrived, and was heading off toward the Big Water.

It thus hadn't taken much to convince him to abandon the beach. After all, the first prey animal he found there had been all but utterly tasteless; and the other Empty Things standing around seemed to have a way to make pain like nothing he'd ever felt before. Other prey animals might try to bite or scratch him--the flutteries could even make pain and fly away--but these Empty Things had the power to make pain from so far away that he'd have to risk losing his eyes and teeth before he could even get close. Besides, as he'd learned from the first flavorless one, these Empty Things were hardly the delicacies they misleadingly appeared to be. So, even though there had definitely been a Nourishment source of some kind there on the on the beach, it clearly wasn't the Empty Things themselves; and they were just making it entirely too painful to stick around.

Maybe he'd come back later and go after the Empty Things again, but not while he knew there were better things to munch elsewhere.

* * *

In the middle of the river, the water was fast and calm. It didn't rush past their raft. It seemed to smoothly glide beneath its rubber bottom, raising it slightly above the currents while carrying it along. Lara rowed gently, once at a time on each side; but she needn't have put forth even that much effort. The current was strong and single-minded, taking them in only the direction she wanted.

On one side of the river was the forest beach, endlessly stretching out into the high main island. On the other side was the far away rocky cavern wall, blurred behind a continuous cascade. These two imposing features were gradually separating as the river widened and the raft traveled straight between them, traveling the centerline of the bend before them, traveling around the mainland and into the huge, open-aired and misty big water that lay in the vast western beyond. The misty space before their eyes only gradually cleared as they journeyed toward it; the fog filling the space between the fore and background of the cavern like a wavering translucent veil. It was toward this mysterious, borderless place that Lara and Rainy traveled; carried mindlessly by the currents, and assisted psychologically by Lara's needless, mindless rowing.

Rainy had been quiet but for asking his pointless question about their eventual destination. He knew after hearing her answer that Lara neither knew nor cared where the water was taking them, only that it was important that the water keep doing so. That the water keep driving them, leading them, guiding them. For Lara, Rainy sensed, the water was like his own gods--the ones he probably didn't really believe in, yet prayed to just the same. He liked to feel his gods were leading him, guiding him, giving him cosmic shortcuts whenever they could. His gods were always there when he needed them, or when he simply wanted a friend--even if he frequently denied them whenever they weren't convenient for him. For Lara, however, this water-god was more imposing. For one thing, neither Rainy nor Lara could conveniently deny its existence should it turn against them--as it obviously was then. Rainy's heart was becoming anxious in his chest. The roar of the river ahead signaled that its gentle tug was turning into something monstrous and hungry. The river's threatening violence was daunting--as was Lara's singular determination to plow straight through it.

"Lara?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"Don't you hear that?"

"Of course."

"Lara?"

Less urgently this time: "Yes?"

"Aren't we kind of far away from shore?"

"Don't be afraid, Rainy," Lara assured him. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"You sure?"

"Have I failed you yet?"

Rainy thought about all of the times he had saved himself, each time more harrowing than the last. It was true, he had indeed survived everything the cruel Universe had sent his way; and Lara Croft had always been there, like an avenging angel, whenever it had seemed that he was too lost to save himself. But he thought about all of the mistakes he could have made. All of the times there would not have been a Lara Croft there to save him. But for himself, he would have died a dozen times that day. So, could it really be said that Lara had never failed him? His thoughts, memories, and feelings at that moment threatened to overwhelm him; and the coming hell he could feel reverberating beneath his boat wasn't helping.

"Isn't there another way?" he pleaded.

"No," she said flatly.

And Rainy knew that she was coldly determined, unshakably faithful.

He shuddered, bracing himself. _Oh well_, he thought, _There was no way out, now_. He'd taken her hand back at the soldiers' base, and he'd allowed her to drag him away from their protection. In a way, this coming nightmare was going to be his own fault. Just when he'd found an ally in that major, he'd let the crazy Wonderbrat whip him back up into her usual happy hell-storm. He could have called the dogs on her. He could have compelled her to surrender to them. He could have simply sat his butt down on the beach until she grew too tired to drag him anymore. He could done _something_ besides board this fool raft with this fool psycho woman. But now it was too late even to complain. The rampaging mist was already falling on his face, and he could see the bounding, _standing, _waves--a dozen feet high, some of them--coursing above the depressed middle patch of the huge open rapids which were now visible before them. He clutched the raft's handlegrips with both hands, tightly sealed his eyes, held his breath, and he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But the violence didn't come. And, though it took him a moment to realize it, Lara was deathly silent.

Though he had, all along, been hearing the sound of her calm, methodical, athlete's way of breathing--in and then out, in a long, deliberate rhythm--it still took him a few seconds of hearing nothing to realize that she was holding her breath.

And he found that Lara was right: It _was_ breath-taking.

In the science of river rafting, rapids are classified on scale from one to five. By that scale, these rapids were a six. Perhaps even a _seven_. It was all of the aqua-violence his little mind could handle seeing. Luckily, it was discretely separated from him. Somehow, the violence was all _over there_ while he remained atop the course of a gentle, smooth-running current. There was a _wall_ just beneath the surface of the water. A wall that kept the bulk of his smooth-water from spilling over into the deeper, rapids-infested basin.

Someone, amazingly, had _built _that wall beneath the lake. It was made of bricks. Clearly, it was for specifically the purpose of tranquilizing the waters on the right side of the lake while leaving the waters of the left free to violate credulity at will. Who could have gone under the water--under _that_ water--and constructed such an elaborate baffle? Why would they go to all the trouble?

Rainy knew the answers to these questions the instant he realized that it had been neither the wall nor the rapids that had taken Lara's breath away in the first place.

Before them, in the direction where they were being drawn, there was a stepped pyramid. A giant, gleaming white, four-sided pyramid shrouded by a rising mist so thick and so white that it made the structure virtually indistinguishable from its background. It was flat at the top and asymmetrical about the base, with two of its aspects somewhat broader than the other two. It sat majestically in the center of the big open water, at what seemed the center of the great depression, at the heart of the mammoth cavern. From everywhere, the lake came running into it, flowing around it; filling the depression and somehow vanishing beneath its base. Lara and Rainy were flowing with the vanishing waters, carried upon them like goods upon a conveyor belt.

Because Rainy could see that one of the walls was built like a massive flight of steps, like the pyramids of the Aztecs or Mayans, he thought at first he had gauged its approximate size. But he hadn't. Its seeming closeness was a mirage of the misty air and the blurry white of the waters nibbling upon its base. In reality, it was _incredibly_ big. At least _twice as large_ as the Egyptians' famed pyramids.

He knew because they kept drifting toward it.

They just kept drifting.

And it just kept getting bigger.

Lara just stared.

It was as though nothing else existed in the Universe. Rainy could see that this was "her" place. That there was a mysticism here that Lara perceived more acutely than could anyone else in the world. Her eyes were wide, gazing more with reverence than awe. What she was feeling was so much more sublime than Rainy's simple-hearted terror that he couldn't bear to watch her any longer. Waiting impatiently for her, at least, to breathe again, he let his eyes fall over the murderous rapids barred away just to the left, and once--at first only furtively--fully back behind the raft, where he expected to see nothing of interest.

And instead saw the most terrifically compelling thing of the day.

"Lara!" he said urgently, stirring in the raft, adjusting himself until he was able to see it fully.

"I don't care," murmured Lara tranquilly.

"_You'll care!_"

She reluctantly turned around and looked--once, twice--before swiping a pistol from her holster and pointing it reflexively past Rainy's shoulder.

"Shit!" she hissed quietly, all the magic of her previous moment abruptly erased.

Breaking the surface of the water no more than twenty feet behind them were two alligator-like eyes the size of bowling balls. They were five feet apart, and their pupils were dilated and glued greedily upon the raft. Whatever it was, its huge body was darkening a swath of crystal water fifty-to-seventy feet behind them. It was gaining quickly, coming in for its final rush--

Lara fired her pistols three times, striking directly against one of its eyes--but the thing barely winked at the assault. Clearly realizing their futility, Lara thrust her pistols back into their holsters and grabbed violently for her oar.

"What the hell are you doing?" gasped Rainy, clutching at one of the raft's handlegrips, realizing that Lara was thrusting the raft left--over the wall and straight into the rapids.

* * *

Stripes was never one to give up easily.

Twice the Ugly Things had come within his grasp, and twice they had escaped him, becoming loud and fast-moving things where once they had been merely soft and slow and tasty-looking. His entourage, especially Bark and Spike, were becoming anxious and restless, sick of being bored, and feeling repressed by all of Stripes' restraint. Of course, Stripes had never _forced_ them to follow him, and he had never compelled them to obey his leadership; it had always been each of them individually who had _chosen_ to accompany him. In just such spirit, in this instance, as in all others, Stripes chose to ignore the disappointment of his companions--and to go again about doing whatever it was that it currently pleased him to do.

For Stripes, unlike his companions, the second bereavement had not been any more disappointing than the first. Somehow he knew that this chase, this _hunt_, was simply the way of things. There was something inherently unique about the Ugly Things that made it imperative that they be understood _before_ they were attacked, and part of that wisdom had to have something to do with how they could become fast upon mysterious occasion. It was somehow connected to the loud things they often had with them. In fact, Stripes blithely mused, it could be exactly the loud things that made the Ugly Things _into_ Fast Things. This was a leap of intuition that was clearly beyond the puny intellects of his companions, and major the reason why they would always follow _him_ rather than ever vice-versa.

Stripes left the empty beach clearing, bored with sniffing the muddy puddle of Ugly Thing tasty juice, and went off into the woods again; this time _certain _he could catch the Ugly Things and finally play with them, once and for all. This time he had a Plan. The others, reluctantly, also abandoned the curious yummy-puddle and dutifully followed.

* * *

The waves were huge standing-waves because just beneath the surface of the incredibly fast, incredibly voluminous flow of water were incredibly huge rocks. The water washed down from the higher river beds surrounding the great lake's center basin and washed over this jagged bed of shards, where the water's sheer energy was turning what could have been a deep, tranquil lagoon into something insatiably ravenous. The chopped-up water surface went up and down in screaming torrents the size of farm-houses, like a garden of half-buried, upturned firehoses--moving enough white-water every second to fill multiple swimming pools. The water whipped up and down; and, while it was certain that anything sent down into the deepest depths would have been pounded into oblivion by the weight and the pressure of what was often ten-thousand gallons per second or more, if something were to end up riding upon the high-arching wavecrests instead, it would be no safer: finding itself dashed upon the heartless rocks. Lara charged them head-long into this awful place, and the monster tenaciously followed.

They could see the thing's shape when it passed over the wall, following them into hell. It had a huge head and huge teeth, huge eyes, a huge body, and a long tail. Its arms were quite short, however, and seemed shrunken for a monster of its otherwise immense size. There was no doubt what it was. They knew this monster only too well from childhood nightmares and big-budget fantasy films. Even though this one seemed gigantic beyond all scientific explanation, there was no doubt that it was tyrannosaurus rex.Though it was as much as _twice_ the size of any fossilized specimen ever found in paleontology, and far more agile than any scientist had ever dreamed a rex could be, the instant Lara and Rainy glanced back and saw it, they knew everything they needed to know. By the end of the split-second it took them to watch the beast sliding over the wall and come pouncing after them, Lara and Rainy were done asking all of their internal 'why's' and 'how's' and were ready to make their go at the all-important 'how':

How to survive in such a tiny, tiny raft.

Lara was quick to divert the raft from their first spill and into another faster moving one, though Rainy was already aghast at the speed they had already achieved. The raft went down and then up again, just over the crest of a standing wave. The two humans were doused instantly, and the raft was flooded to the brim. But the next two rocks ahead formed a passage of sorts, through which the water ripped evenly, leaving a balance of furies that kept the raft upright and shooting onward, zipping between them like a bullet.

The dinosaur had meanwhile been, for an instant, disoriented--even blinded, momentary--by the coursing white waters and the incredible tides battering its body. It went down and up and down again in its clumsy attempt to regain buoyancy, demonstrating, to Rainy's transfixed horror, how deep this water really was. Finally, the creature regained itself and clutched meaninglessly at the torrents of flying water exploding over the rocks it was spilling through, crashing through them all and diving again, squirming like an eel beneath the foamy drink separating it from the fleeing raft. It resurfaced again at the double-rock gateway through which their raft had just passed, and it clutched both rocks in each stumpy hand, hurling its massive bulk as though playing a gleeful game of leap frog. When its body slid down again into the drink just behind them, Rainy could see that it would overtake them by its underwater inertia alone. It was going to come up open-mouthed for a breath and find the raft lodged in its throat!

Rainy wanted to scream, seeing the dark shape moving so quickly beneath them, but Lara was just as aware of it as he. She had her eyes ahead of them, toward where the basin still declined; spilling everything not abruptly diverted elsewhere into the rocky, deeper sections further center. She knew that the dinosaur was underwater, swept in the tides; and while, of course, so were they, she had a choice coming to her that it did not. She could use her oars to place their raft in the path of a violent counter-flow ripping down from a standing wave and pouring over the back of a slanting boulder. If she did this, the raft would be shot clear of the raging basin--shot adjacently out from the center, toward the inland shores, where the incredible fury was slightly less insanely furious. However, to do this would also entail diving deliberately headlong into the tail-spill of one of the most terrific standing waves they had seen so far.

"Hang on!" screamed Lara, and she ripped her oar through the foam, diverting the raft the precious few feet off course it needed to be in order to enter the desired jetstream.

Rainy only realized an instant before she did it what it was that Lara was about to cause to happen. He had finally learned the futility of protest. He clutched the handlegrip of the raft with both hands, buried his face in his chest, and dropped belly down, and then hoped--_prayed_--for the best. When the water came pounding down over him like a palm-slap from the gods, he was left only to imagine that his prayers had not only been ignored, but punished.

But Lara was better aware, however, and took the punishment in stride. Though the raft was flooded, and it tried to buckle and sink beneath them--actually descending a full foot beneath the foam--Lara leaned back over Rainy's prostrate body and made the nose rise up just as the raft caught the out-flowing water stream. She made it shoot clear of the torrent, kipping it backwards. It emptied itself of water as it passed back out into the open. When it sprang clear, it was floating and reinstilled with life. It vigorously bit into the flow that was ripping across her targeted rockface, and it shot clear of the lethal center-basin a moment later.

The dinosaur was less lucky; but, through brutality and incredible strength, it constructed its own "luck." The water of the tides indeed whipped it past where Lara had surreptitiously diverted her raft, leaving it chomping down upon empty foam. At once disappointed and enraged, it did something that should have been impossible for even an animal of its enormous size--and it made it look easy. The tyrannosaurus reached around the very rock behind which Lara had just diverted, and pulled itself--_against the current_--back around behind her. It's huge head appeared around the horizon of the bolder that their raft was grazing and it caught up to them so quickly that its huge glossy, dripping wet eyes virtually crossed as they focused down upon them. It opened its gaping mouth and lunged down at the raft, missing it by the extra inches of speed the fresh tides had just lent to it. The dinosaur went down again into the deep water, the flesh of its broad belly brushing the rear-most pontoon of the raft as it passed.

The monster was going to come in front of the raft again, where the currents would drag it straight into its mouth. Too late, then, to do anything but react, Lara plunged her oars into the water to add speed: There was sharp spill-over just past where the monster would make its strike. She was clearly hoped that speed would aid her in doing whatever it was she found herself doing next. As it happened, the speed _was_ essential because just as the beast came up from beneath and tried to wrap its jaws around them, it was her mighty stab with the oar against its gums, coupled with the fact of their speed, that caused the raft to launch up and clear of the mouth like a clumsy pole-vaulter--spilling sideways and tumbling into the foam, but still rocketing clear just before the mouth could wrench itself shut.

Rainy was only halfway in the raft when it spilled over the edge and into the wilder, deeper basin. He was clinging by one hand to the handlegrip, and yelling wildly whenever he was sure there would be air to suck in to replaced that which he had already screamed out. Lara might have thought to lean across the raft and pull his flailing body back in, but she was far too busy shoving the oar into the water on one side of the raft and then the other, trying to keep them from becoming beached or simply exploding on the minefield of sharp chunks this deeper basin had proven itself to be. Rainy was going to have to fend for himself.

The dinosaur did not so much climb after them as roll its way across, its huge body beached momentary at its cusp, stuck atop the boulders. But what its pause had taken from it in inertia, it gave it back in multiples by providing it the footing it needed to reassert its bearings and bring its fullest strength to bear. Bracing against the fixed boulders, the giant monster leaped with the full musculature of its legs. It soared through the air, crashing down over the raft.

Lara didn't know it was coming, but Rainy did. Hanging half-out of the raft, his eyes turned up at the first hint of the shadow, and he shrieked uselessly. The monster missed the raft itself, but its flailing claws and tail whipped violently at them, trying to grab hold of what its opened jaws had so narrowly missed. Ironically, Rainy knew, if it weren't for the very randomness his human rudder had lent the raft, the beast might have been better able to predict where to jump.

Even so, the monster was still too close for safety; and its flailing, lethal claws and tail threatened to fall down upon them even if its head was too far away. The monster could swim; and, in seconds, it would turn more than merely its stubby arms against their raft and its passengers. The rocky basin floor was no place to attempt to outmaneuver it--the threat of the jagged rocks being almost as terrible as that of the beast itself. Rainy knew what she was thinking: She had to get clear of this thing, and clear of the basin floor, and clear even of Rainy Hedgebrook before she could ever hope to effectively fight.

Her hopes on all counts were answered unexpectedly.

There was a particularly furious current ripping over a bolder to her left, toward the shoreline (which appeared as a vague darkness at the horizon just past and beneath the white mist). Seeing the tyrannosaurus spinning in the water, regaining its bearing, and focusing back upon them, they knew that their only chance to gain speed would be a dive into that torrent. Lara diverted the raft--against Rainy's implicit shivered protest--and rode over a surge, and into the explosive over-throw.

That instant, the dinosaur regained its bearings and dived at the raft, mouth-first; but it found, again, that its prey was too wily to be so easily taken. It tried to follow Lara toward the torrent, though more wading than swimming, and it tried to dive in after her; but it only managed to hit the surge and get buried while the raft caught its desired upsurge and shot straight away from it and into the air. The monster snapped after it once, and then twice; but the raft was gone, and it itself was stuck in surge, the pressures beneath it too low to lift it clear. While white-water swirled over it, it clutched madly at the boulders, attempting to free itself of the undertow.

Meanwhile, Lara and Rainy and the raft had been sent flying on the crest of the torrent, setting down upon a series of jaggedly half-detached palisades, leaning well-out from the bank-proper. While the wild white water swirled in and around these cliff structures, they remained in place--high, if not dry: as the chasms beneath and all around acted as a sieve to conduct the water away. Lara reacted quickly to the opportunity providence had just offered her. She turned menacingly upon Rainy and violently knocked him off with her oar.

"Get out!" she hissed, and his prostrate body slid away from the raft and onto the moist, slimy rock.

He tried to get back in, but Lara was quicker. Seeing Rainy seeing the dinosaur climbing the rock just adjacent to theirs, breaking up the heavy spray with its impossible bulk, Lara escaped him--shoving herself and the raft off of the rock and back down to the foam.

As she went, her desertion taking Rainy utterly by surprise, she called out: "Hide!" and fell away.

Instantly, the dinosaur came ripping its way through the white spray. It was flying up toward the clifftop where Rainy was, and the raft--just that second--suddenly wasn't. Seeing the face of the monster looming upon him, Rainy rolled clear of the cliff, clinging to its the edge by his sore, water-logged fingers. He could just see over the rock while the seemingly endless flanks of the creature passed by--its head, then its body, then its tail. It passed without its belly ever actually touching the cliff. It plunged into the far side of the surge head-first, diving through precisely the spot Lara had--vanishing like a needle into fabric.

* * *

Setting the Interlocutor adrift had been a bad idea.

Doc knew it then, and he certainly knew it now.

There hadn't been much leeway to complain, though. They could hardly have been taken the Interlocutor on one of the motorcycles, and there weren't enough motorcycle seats for everyone in any case. Also, he had to admit, there would have been a straight-up mutiny had Spaulding stupidly ordered them to stand there and try to defend that beach-of-death. But now Doc, Cavanaugh, Trip, and Wallis were all back on the river, on a joy-ride in tyrannosaurus rex-infested water! This _had_ to be the wrong choice, no matter it was the _only_ choice.

Sitting in the second of the three rafts, attending Tripp's wounds, Doc could only quietly scoff to himself. They were floating--without orders, without a plan, without a prayer--on an underground nightmare waterway, baby-sitting a half-gobbled space-heater-looking thing, and waiting any second to be chomped down alive by Godzilla himself. It was worse than a bad dream. Doc's bad dreams usually at least made sense. How the hell did he wind up _here_? The only thing he knew for certain was that he should have just taken that job his uncle had offered him at the post office, and _worked_ his way through college.

"Man, if we get out of this alive," Doc mused, "I'm going to take off this uniform, and I'm going to burn this mutherfucker."

"Yeah, yeah, man," said Tripp, stuttering, clearly beginning to feel the effects of his shock. "I'm with you, man. Fuck these bitches."

Doc was treating Tripp's wounds and preparing him for another infusion of fresh red blood from his medical kit. Cavanaugh, in another raft, was examining the area around them through binoculars, searching for signs of either their friends on the shore or their foes on the water. He was scanning the horizon slowly, clearly trying to ignore Doc and Tripp's loud voices. Cavanaugh may have wanted to, but he knew better than to even _try_ to quiet his two squadmates. He surely realized that they were only speaking out of frustration. Doc, for sure, would dare any one to openly argue with him--and he _hoped _for a chance to fight with Spaulding's lapdog, Wallis, who had been placed nominally in charge.

"Ouch!" Tripp protested loudly.

"Quit moving, boy!" Doc said.

It was hard to stick an IV needle into an exhausted, emaciated arm moving on a moving raft.

"That hurts," said Tripp.

"It's supposed to hurt," replied Doc. "Hold still."

"I guess I'm just a pussy," Tripp said. "From now on, I'll just bleed here more quietly."

"Will you two shut up?" whispered Wallis, in Cavanaugh's raft.

"Fuck you, man," Doc retorted loudly.

"You want that thing to come back here?" Wallis snapped.

"Don't, don't bother," Cavanaugh said, without removing his face from the binoculars.

"But," insisted Wallis, "it's going to _hear_ them."

"Maybe," Cavanaugh said. "But Doc _will_ shoot you."

Wallis looked at Doc, and found him smirking.

"That's just the kind of day we've had," Cavanaugh said.

Wallis looked at both men, first one and then the other, and sighed in exasperation, giving up.

"What are you looking at, anyway?" Wallis then demanded, noticing how Cavanaugh had suddenly stopped scanning and had focused on a place past the rapids, on the mainland.

"Nothing," Cavanaugh said innocently, though not innocently enough. Even Doc's attention was piqued--he recognized his long-time battle-buddy's lying-voice only too well.

Wallis snatched the binoculars from the reluctant Cavanaugh while Cavanaugh sighed bitterly. Wallis spent less than three seconds searching the shoreline before seeing what Cavanaugh was trying to hide and grinning meanly about it. He switched his radio pickup to ACTIVE.

"Colonel?" Wallis said. "I think I've got something for you."

* * *

The water just past the palisades was darker, deeper, and stronger than even the basin beneath the rapids. It was fed directly from a huge river outlet--a gulf massively dividing the main island that was gorged with the accumulated waters of the entire eastern mountain range, as well as and those of half of the streams of the rest of the biosphere. These white-waters-in-training had learned the art of churning there, in the gulf, and were finding gainful employment in the surging bottom-waters of the larger lake. These gulf-fed bottom-waters were deadly deep and surreally swift. The speed of them put the speed of the rapids above them to pitiful shame.

It was with the backdrop of these waters and their awesome sounds that Rainy climbed his way to the mainland shore. It had been a hard climb. Heavy white surges flowed in the chasm dividing the palisade from the bank of the mainland. The rocky edges were slick with algae and moisture. But the hardest part had been the distraction of a continuous, blurry motion of the gulf waters flowing into bottom-waters and the bottom-waters sweeping out continuously toward the distant pyramid--where it seemed all the waters went and no waters returned. That one-way, relentless motion ever-intruded upon his peripheral vision as he climbed. Every ripple, every drifting log, everything--he had had no choice but to hope--was Lara; because, otherwise, it seemed she was gone for good.

When he finally reached the solid clifftop, he was frantic to spot a sign of his friend, or their raft, or the monster. Was Lara eaten? Was the tyrannosaurus drowned? Did Lara drown? Where did the raft go? He searched the shore and the waters and the distant mist, but apart from the still-awesome vision of the pyramid slopes breaking up the white-water monotony of the basin, there was nothing of interest in the water.

Frantically, he cried out: "Lara!"

And he searched around again; peering down into the wispy, white, foamy shore below, expecting to see nothing and seeing--

Too much.

"Lara!" he managed to cry out again, but the third cry he had been preparing died in his throat.

There, at the base of the palisades, was the rubber raft. It was deflated, shredded, and missing huge chunks where, clearly, a great, sharp-toothed mouth had rended it. He backed away from the cliff slowly, feeling something terrible welling up within him.

"Lara," he whispered.

_This is it,_ he thought, _I'm finally all alone._

But he wasn't alone.

As he backed away from the cliff, he felt a gun barrel plant itself solidly upon the back of his skull.

He heard Sydwinsky's sarcastic voice: "Hi-ya, Rainy."


	18. Chapter Seventeen: Tyrannosaurus Wrecks

**INSTRUMENTAL: "Warrior's Suite." Final Movement.**

**--Unknown **

(Original Television Soundtrack:

_Rurouni Kenshin_.)

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:** **"**Tyrannosaurus Wrecks.**"**

"So, when _were_ you planning to tell us, then?" demanded Doc, eyeing Cavanaugh suspiciously.

"As soon as I knew for sure what I was looking at," Cavanaugh replied.

"Anh-huh," muttered Wallis, still gazing through the binoculars.

"I don't know, man," said Doc. "You've been acting awfully soft lately. I think the little shit is starting to get to you. I think you're starting to like him."

Cavanaugh didn't have a reply.

He returned his gaze over Wallis' shoulder, toward the space beyond the rapids where he had spotted Rainy on the shore. But he found he couldn't distinguish anything from the mist with his naked eyes. He resigned himself to awaiting Wallis' report.

The three Operations Force rafts had drifted well into the open waters by then, drawn by the same currents that had drawn Lara and Rainy: Gently past these horrendous rapids along the safe edge of this same, inscrutable underwater wall. They had figured they would find them on the pyramid in the distance, and they had already been anticipating docking there to serve as an advance force for the main group of soldiers to follow. But then Cavanaugh had spotted Rainy Hedgebrook on the shore on the opposite side of the rapids. The fact that he was over there rather than before them gave them extreme doubts about Lara Croft's whereabouts. How had the boy gotten safely past those rapids? Let alone up those cliffs? Their confusion at Rainy's apparent feat, however, was only minor compared to their disbelief that one of their own would so utterly fail his test of loyalty by hesitating to report it to them.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter anyway," said Wallis, still watching Rainy through Cavanaugh's binoculars, and chuckling coldly. "I looks like they've just about...Oh, yes--they've got him."

* * *

"Got him, sir," Sydwinsky said into his radio pickup, and almost immediately Rainy began to hear the sounds of motorcycle engines in the near distance, roving in.

He hazarded a look at the face of his captor.

"No sign of her. I'll ask," Sydwinsky said into the pickup, turning to Rainy: "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Rainy said, honestly.

"You lying little bitch," Sydwinsky said. "Where is she?"

"I don't know!" Rainy cried; though his voice was nearly drowned out by the roar of the three motorcycles that then broke through the foliage bordering the cliff's-edge clearing. Rainy watched while the five riders dismounted and joined Sydwinsky in the center.

Spaulding appeared to be even more short-fused than the last time Rainy had been brought before him.

"Three words," the colonel snapped as he approached, his voice blending well with the hellish roar of the rapids just past the cliff, "where is she?"

"I don't know," Rainy said.

Spaulding winced as through Rainy's words had been physically painful. He let his hand fly, back-handing the boy's face. Rainy dropped to his knees in shock and pain, instantly bursting into tears.

"That's the wrong answer," Spaulding said, his icy tone incongruous with the passion he had just displayed. "Give me another one."

"I don't know," Rainy sobbed.

"Then you're useless," Spaulding coldly declared. "I'm sick of you."

Rainy wailed silently, too terrified to move.

"If any man here can say why this kid's brains and the dirt beneath my feet shouldn't be legally wed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace," Spaulding said, aiming his weapon at Rainy's twelve-year-old, down-turned, miserably sobbing skull.

"Well, but," stammered the major, stepping forward, "what about the virus?"

"I gave you more than an hour for that goddamned virus, Major," Spaulding said. "That was your time limit. And his."

"But we were getting close," the major said, clearly anxious, clearly horrified, at the atrocity he was about to witness.

"I don't care anymore," said Spaulding. "Another one of my men has died, and--"

"That wasn't his fault!"

"You _are_ defending him!" snapped Captain Bailey, standing behind him, sounding as though he had been warned to expect Leipig to behave this way and yet was still surprised by the sight of it.

"Well, I--" gasped Leipig, clearly realizing he had been ensnared.

"Then its true," said Spaulding. "Goddamnit, it's really true."

Suddenly Leipig's weapons were taken from him from behind. Sydwinsky and Ross grabbed his 9mm and MP5 simultaneously and removed them from his body before he could react to their presence. Leipig looked around to see the other five soldiers standing around him, eyeing him; obviously knowing some damning fact about him that he himself had not yet been made privileged too. But which he could, surely, easily guess.

Rainy raised his head, realizing that he was no longer the colonel's chief interest anymore, and perhaps never had been. The colonel was interested in the major. He looked up into their faces and watched while the colonel's ice melted into incredulous disappointment. The colonel had been laying a trap for the major, with him as bait. It was a trap, however, that the colonel had clearly hoped would turn up nothing. The colonel's trust in his friend had been shattered. His faith had been undermined. The colonel displayed his disgust unabashedly. His face twisted up as though he were smelling something foul.

"Mr. Morigushi called me from the helicopter," the colonel explained. "I didn't want to believe it, but the NSA told him that somebody had used his satellite link to bypass network security and upload up a restricted file to a White House server. He was terrified out of his mind. Pentagon net control were accusing _him_, the poor bastard. They accused him of treason. I was sure it had to be a mistake. But no. You've been in it with Hedgebrook all along haven't you? Or Croft, maybe?"

"No!" protested the major.

"Then why?" demanded the colonel, "tell me why!"

The major paused and straightened his uniform. He stood a little taller than before, a little prouder. He looked back into the soldiers' faces, one at a time. They were standing around him in a large circle, aiming their weapons at him as though he'd never been a trusted one of their ranks. He challenged them with his eyes. Even though they refused to acknowledge _him_ anymore, he wasn't going to allow them to put him down without at least making it certain how well he still knew _them_.

"Colonel Spaulding, you know why," the major said. "You know more than I do. You know this is wrong. You know what's _really_ been going on. You know the games they're playing."

"Yes," Spaulding sadly admitted. "I've known for a while."

"And you've done nothing?" said Leipig. "Don't you understand? They could start a war!"

"No, no," said Spaulding, closing his eyes and shaking his head determinedly, as though along with the physical sight of him, he was, symbolically, trying to close his mind from the major's challenging words. "It's not a soldier's place to question policy."

"But it is your responsibility to disobey immoral orders, Colonel!" Leipig said. "Think about this: Is what Mr. Corbin or Mr. Croft doing right? Is any of it right? Don't you have a responsibility to try and--"

Captain Bailey interrupted: "Not to the point of treason, Major!"

But the colonel was still uncertain. He had opened his eyes, but they were still blaring his incredulity at having found himself in this incomprehensible position. A traitor among his ranks. A traitor who was a trusted friend and compatriot. He clearly still wanted to see the major in that light. He still wanted to trust, to believe...

The major's words would seem close to breaking through: "How can it be treason, Colonel? Who was I trying to tell? Wasn't it the President? Our commander-in-chief?"

But they didn't quite make it.

"The Office of the Presidency and the sitting president are not the same thing," Spaulding replied, rejecting his argument. "And the _office_ ordered an information blackout from whomever is sitting in that position, all the way up to and until the Project is complete--and you _know_ that, Jeremy."

"Don't try and fool yourself, Major," growled Bailey, "you _have_ committed treason. Colonel, you know there's no choice here."

Spaulding's eyes were watering despite his obvious best efforts to harden his expression. His voice deepened, softened, became a whisper. "Throw me a bone here, Jeremy," he pleaded. "Give me a reason not to do what we both know I've got to."

The major had what Rainy thought was a good answer: "There are higher loyalties, Adolf. There are higher moralities!"

But his answer wasn't good enough.

The colonel closed his eyes again and put his hand on his forehead while Captain Bailey took his prosecution to the contemptuous offensive.

"Ahhhhh, come on?" Bailey groaned. "What's next? You gonna sing us the Star Spangled Banner now? We don't have time for this shit!"

"What about a trial?" asked the Colonel, clearly grasping at straws. "Shouldn't he get a trial?"

But the colonel, clearly, already knew his answer, even if he needed to hear it from someone else's mouth.

"Summary authority rests with you, Colonel," Bailey said, resting his case.

Spaulding pleaded: "How can I trust you, Jeremy? How can I trust you now? Goddamnit, what have you done?"

But after a pause, Spaulding hardened his resolve and swallowed determinedly.

"We've got too far still to go," he concluded. "And there's still too much damage you could do. I'm sorry, Jeremy. There's no choice. I've..."

"Sir!" screamed Ross.

Everyone looked in the direction Ross was pointing and saw the same amazing thing. Across the broad, rippling sheet of water that flowed from the land to the distant pyramid there was a spot of dark movement. It was moving unbelievably swiftly up the slope of the pyramid, powered by set of legs as incomparably graceful as they were inconceivably strong. They couldn't make out the body's details for the distance, but the of the spot's identity, there could be no doubt.

"Do you think that could be..?" continued Ross, guilelessly.

"Who the fuck do you think it is?" barked the captain.

And the colonel, with an unspeakably grateful sigh, shouted: "Nail her!"

* * *

Upon approaching the face of the gigantic white pyramid, the rafters had been able to see how the water flowed about the structure's slightly recessed base, toward the east and west. To the east, the smooth-flowing waters toppled over the underwater wall and spilled into the violent rapids, which seemed even more hungry at the foot of the pyramid's stepped eastern wall than in the open river.

The rafters, naturally, went west; where the waters turned even more tranquil than they had been during their quiet approach. The soldiers, in fact, found that the entire western aspect of the pyramid was faced with a body of placid, tranquil water that extended past the pyramid to the furthest west and south--all the way to the hitherto-unseen western landmasses which formed an entirely unexplored additional half of the cavern biosphere. But, if Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook had been heading to those unexplored lands, their raft would still be visible upon the lake--the soldiers hadn't been that far behind them. Moreover, they already knew that Rainy was on the bank--Lara would not have gone far. The pyramid was still the place to set up camp.

Once they found a place to disembark.

They had been dreading dragging the Interlocutor from the raft, expecting the western face of the pyramid be another stepped wall; but instead it was smooth, and potched with openings. Some of the openings were very small, like tiny windows; but others were large enough to have driven an automobile through, had there been roads connected to them. The largest opening occupied more than a tenth of the pyramid's full length at its base, and it was clearly a docking port for boats. As they approached it, they could see that within it was an embarcadero of sorts, with ancient wooden bins, tables, and wheeled carts; all decrepit with age. It was a vast high-ceilinged space, and it was easy to imagine it filled with teaming pre-historic denizens and merchants, busily off-loading cargo and enjoying the festive bazaar it seemed well-designed to accommodate.

It was as the soldiers had begun to follow the example of their imagined prehistoric predecessors and were beginning to off-load their massive electronic cargo that they received Spaulding's transmission:

"_Lieutenant Wallis!_" said the radio.

"Sir?" replied Wallis, busily assisting Doc in lifting the Interlocutor from the raft while Cavanaugh stood receiving it upon the edge of the bay floor. Wallis was so surprised by the unexpected urgency in the colonel's voice that he almost dropped his half of the precious machine into the water.

"_Listen to me!_" the colonel said, shouting to be heard over the fully-automatic machinegun fire around him.

"Go ahead," Wallis replied.

"_Where are you?_" the colonel demanded, adding: "_are you near the structure yet?_"

"We're there," Wallis said, watching while the other soldiers stabilized the Interlocutor on the dry stone floor. "Just arrived."

Cavanaugh, Doc, and Tripp were standing by, also listening urgently. They all recoiled when the colonel said:

"_She's there with you! We can see her! She's heading to the roof!_"

"Jesus," said Doc.

"_With luck we'll hit her and all there'll be is a body, but get up there!_" the colonel growled. "_Do not let her get away!_"

"Yes, sir," said Wallis, climbing out of the raft.

He nearly fell back into the water when he heard:

"_Well--wait--what the fuck is--? Christ-!_"

And silence.

"Colonel? Colonel?" cried Wallis, but no one replied. He needlessly reported: "They've been cut off."

"What the fuck?" asked Doc.

"I don't know," said Wallis, dusting off his pants and moving his slinged weapon to ready. "Let's go."

* * *

Lara could breathe again.

It was the first verbal thought that had entered her mind in the last several minutes. She didn't know how long she had been under water, but it had been a long time. Usually she could time a period of hypoxia based upon her body's sensations, but this time all of her usual indicators had been overwhelmed by sheer muscular fatigue. She had been moving rapidly, violently, and desperately; driven by terror, guided by reflex, saved often only by pure luck. The water had seemed to have no intention of releasing her at all; driven, as it was, toward some massive all-encompassing vortex devouring half the lake beneath the pyramid's base. But, when it slammed her body against the bottom steps, Lara was quick and coherent enough to pull herself clear and suddenly be above-water. She could breathe again.

But she knew her ordeal was only just beginning.

She had no time to be amazed at just how far her embattled body had traveled underwater. She needed to focus herself upon the situation around her. Each step was between two and three feet tall, and there were fully fifty or more of them between the pyramid base and the only visible place to hide: the pyramid roof. There was no time to consider other options--such as running around the base-step horizontally, or to trying to fight from where she stood. Her burning intuition was to flee, and she obeyed it unquestioningly. With lunging, steady, rapid, and immensely powerful strides, she began to scale the pyramid slope.

When the shots then came, potching the stone steps above, below, and around her climbing legs, she hadn't even the mind to spare them. She saw the bullets hitting, exploding their little explosions, leaving their little pits in the stone steps around her--increasing in rapidity and accuracy as more and more shooters clearly joined the firing squad and acquired better and better aim--but it didn't matter. Dodging would slow her down. It was not an option. The real threat was the one that would explode after her from the water; and, when it came, it would wholly justify her single-mindedness.

The tyrannosaurus sounded like it had dragged up most of the lake with it, bursting the flowing sheet as though its mass were weightless and meaningless. Water spattered Lara's legs even at her high height above it, halfway up the slope.

She forced herself into an even more arduous stride; shifting her mind's focus so completely away from the trivial machinegun bullets that she almost didn't notice it when, quickly afterward, their rate of fire declined--and then abruptly stopped altogether.

* * *

Stryber had put Leipig and Rainy side by side on their knees in front of him while he lined up next to the other soldiers on the cliff's edge to raze Lara Croft.

Their hands were on their heads, and they were helpless to do anything but watch while the agile woman kept climbing, straight toward the top. Each second, they each prayed for her survival and watched their prayers being answered; but only Rainy knew to pray also for her protection from the far more formidable threat still coming. He could hope it had been washed away to some other place, or that it had drowned; but his gut told him differently. Lara wasn't running from the gunshots. She was running from something else. And, of course, Rainy was correct.

The tyrannosaur was huge, even from afar. It scattered enough water to obscure their sight even of Lara, a hundred feet above it. When the water settled, and he knew they could see exactly what it was that was competing with them for their human prey, Rainy could sense the soldiers' attitudes shifting uneasily from hatred to sympathy. Sympathy for anything pitted against _that_. Rainy saw several firers losing their resolve and decreasing their rate of fire. He also saw something else that almost knocked him from his knees to his haunches in speechless terror.

"_Do not_ let her get away!" The colonel said, only then noticing what was scratching--tugging--at his back. "Well--wait--what the fuck is--? Christ-!"

It wanted his radio. His wireless headset. His black softcap. It won them. It took them all away.

It stood as tall as Spaulding, and faced him eye to eye. Its long canine snout breathed hot, blood-scented breath into his face. Its body was muscular and lean and vaguely bird-shaped, except for its two human-like arms, its long whip-like tail, and its two bulky, kangaroo-like, claw-footed legs. Its hide was leathery and coarse. It was brown but for the deep black stripes that decorated it fiercely, like a tiger. It was an animal. A dinosaur. But the force of its presence didn't seem beastly at all; rather somehow purposeful and intelligent. Even as it manipulated the colonel's now-shredded headgear in its razor-clawed hands, it eyed him with its keen and intelligent eyes. It looked him up and down, sizing him up, judging his qualities. And it listened to the squeak of Wallis' radio voice in the broken headset in its hands, clearly wondering where the noise was coming from--had it been able to speak, it would surely have asked.

"What the fuck..?" murmured Colonel Spaulding, echoing the thoughts of all of the others.

Only Leipig could crack a smile: "Velociraptor!" he said.

"Yes," whispered Spaulding dreadfully. "I saw the movie, too."

* * *

Of course, Stripes knew what to do.

When he and the others had chased the Ugly Things this time, he had waited until they had separated themselves from the Loud Things before he approached them. He had led his entourage so that when they emerged after them into the cliff-clearing, they would be standing between the Ugly Things and the Loud Things before the Ugly Things even knew they were there. It was a brilliant plan, of course, and it had precisely the effect that Stripes intended. They came from the woodline precisely as planned; Eyes, Bark, and Spike seeming even to demonstrate an inner understanding of the gist of Stripe's plan by actually coming from the woods in a crawl directly across the Loud Things themselves; waiting perched there on top of them, like Flutteries upon their eggs.

But the plan worked almost _too_ well. Not only had their stealth succeeded in earning them a place between the Ugly Things and their annoying escape means, it had also earned them the boredom of deadtime: They were left there right behind the Ugly Things to wait seemingly endlessly for the Ugly Things to turn around and notice them. Whatever the Ugly Things were doing, it had to do with their Noisy Pain and the White Place where they were pointing them.

Bored, and sick of waiting, Stripes decided to approach the loudest of the Ugly Things, hearing it screaming a noise even more crass than Screech's annoying cries into something hanging over its face. Stripes thought that maybe the black hanging thing might be fun--if the Ugly Thing likes screeching into it, maybe it was something tasty or fast that could be chased. He went to the Ugly Thing's back and took the black hanging thing from it, hoping it would give him the pleasure it was apparently giving the Ugly Thing. He ended up finding the hanging thing to be utterly boring; but there was still hope that the Ugly Thing itself might prove to be more entertaining.

It was time to play….

* * *

By the time she reached the roof, every roar made her pony tail rustle as though in a wind storm. She could already feel its breath enveloping her body in its hot, sickly, wet moisture; drawing off her resolve in inverse proportion to its temperature. She was almost ready to admit defeat. It was clearly faster than she was, and it would get even faster once they reached the pyramid's flat roof. But that was when she reached the top and leaped to a side--and let the monster's inertia carry it over the edge.

The pyramid roof wasn't flat. Instead, the slopes recessed dramatically into a thirty-foot wall whose circumference enclosed an ancient citadel, nearly a quarter mile across. It was clearly an intricate, sophisticated city; its seeming modernity incongruous to the vintage of its architecture. Its outlaying streets were lined with tenements built from the typical clay, wood, bamboo, and straw; but its biggest buildings, its central buildings, would seem to have been carved directly from the stone--and the big buildings were _very _big: multiple stories tall.

The entire town was neatly arranged into quarters surrounding a central stuppa of some sort, complete with what appeared to be an alter on its topmost peak. There was white mist rising from the stuppa, as though someone were offering a burnt sacrifice at even that very moment. The stuppa stuck Lara as being like the citadel's central fireplace; almost like a smokestack.

She didn't have long to admire the architecture, however. The dinosaur was quickly back on its feet on the dirt floor below, and was apparently uninjured from its thirty-foot fall. As it span to face Lara, its tail clumsily splattered an ancient wooden house build haplessly in its path. Both of her guns came out, as though possessing wills of their own, and they starting aiming and firing constantly upon the beast's face, its eyes, and its mouth in a barrage that continued almost without abate throughout the rest of their encounter.

Lara was firing and moving, firing and moving; racing along the wall, leading the monster, but not fleeing it. She hoped that if she could keep this advantage for long enough, she might be able to put enough bullets into it to put it down. But the wall was only thirty-feet tall, and the beast towered at more than twenty-five itself. One meager little hop put its automobile-sized head over the wall's rim, and Lara found herself stumbling in surprise--a little too and for a little too long.

Before Lara could resume her post at the edge and batter it back, its stubby, but apparently mighty, little arms, had wrapped themselves over the top of the wall and were pulling its bulk across the threshold. Lara poured fire aggressively on its fingers, its elbows, and even at the stone edges it was clasping; but the beast was on level with her in an instant.

She kept shooting, aiming at its eyes and mouth and nostrils, but it remained firmly unmoved by its pain --if, indeed, it even felt any. Lara could see tiny bruises welling beneath the skin of her favorite aiming points, but she couldn't seem to break the monster's hide. Even its vulnerable places, like its eyes and its teeth, remained firmly intact--even after barrages so rapid, so vigorous, and so relentless that they left Lara howling with effort and pain, her trigger-finger numb from blurry, relentless action.

Lara span and dashed, hoping her small feet on the narrow slope-top would make up for her short legs. With luck, it would trip on its own gargantuan feet--and maybe even stumble all the way back down into the water. One thing she knew for sure was that it couldn't take a corner, given its massive size. So, with all the speed she had at the moment--and with no other choice--she dashed at the corner, where the pyramid walls intersected, planning to the take the ninety-degree turn from her wall-top to its adjacent partner at speed fast enough to trick the giant dinosaur into attempting to do the same.

She was almost jubilant when her plan nearly worked: She hit the corner adroitly, and the tyrannosaur did not! It stumbled! It didn't fall completely off the slope, but Lara felt confident just the same. She shouldn't have. Just as she had resumed her dash along the adjacent wall, she realized something dreadful. The wall around the citadel was not continuous. At a point only half-way across the city's side, there was another ninety-degree turn; only the adjacent wall was only a few unrunable inches thick, and there was no ground beyond it--just an empty wedge where a full eighth of the body of the pyramid was missing.

She hit that deadly corner and rocked back desperately on her heels.

Directly below--far, far below--she could see open raging waters feeding the event horizon of the vortex she knew must lay below her somewhere. It would seem the shape of the base of the pyramid was more a 'C' than the square it had appeared from the water. There was a gaping canal leading from the outside in. She could see what seemed like entire oceans feeding smoothly, violently, into this wedge; directly down into the center of the citadel, beneath the stuppa. Clearly, the stuppa itself marked the spot of the vortex itself, if two hundred feet above it.

But it didn't matter what Lara saw, the beast didn't care. Even as Lara regained her balance on the edge, the monster clutched at the stone behind her, for aim and stability, and it launched itself straight at her--missing her by inches.

Lara had dropped to the inside of the narrow wall, and was hanging above the city streets by her fingertips. The tyrannosaur was heading over the edge, and she was anticipating the huge splash when the thing hit the waters below; but, instead, she was horrified to see the monster's incredibly agile tail whip downward--catching the wall. She had to drop away to keep from being crushed. She almost expected the stone wall to splinter and collapse from the impact; but, instead, first one, and then two, gigantic hands clasped the top of the wall, and a giant face with giant jaws, giant teeth, and giant eyes came over the rim and peered down at her.

In horror--trapped in the city--Lara ran for her life.

* * *

It seemed like there were raptors everywhere.

There was a raptor perched on each motorcycle.

A raptor standing, as though sentry, at each end of the clearing.

And a raptor staring into Colonel Spaulding's face, looking him over, scratching at his curious human's clothing, sniffing his curious human's breath.

Spaulding, for his part, was trying to indulge the creature's curiosity without provoking it; allowing it to examine him, trying not to move too quickly, trying not to look afraid. But the beast wanted to place its face as nearly completely into Spaulding's as it seemed possible for it too, and the colonel couldn't help but lean back from it. When it pushed him dangerously close to the cliff's edge, Spaulding inched slowly sideways, turning his body while the creature sniffed after him; following him, gazing up at him like an eager puppy-dog following its master. Spaulding raised his empty hand, palm-out, toward the beast; as though somehow believing that even a flimsy barrier was better than no barrier at all. In the meantime, the MP5 in his other hand remained leveled at the creature's belly, held at a tense ready from his hip.

"Somebody do something," Spaulding whispered with as much masculinity as he apparently could muster, obviously straining his courage just to keep from whimpering.

Leipig and Rainy were still prisoners. If they had moved, the soldiers would probably have shot them simply out of reflex. They stayed on their knees, their hands on their heads, watching, shaking, inching to move, waiting for the others to react. Ross watched the dinosaurs, searching for a cue; but he clearly hoped to get it from one of his fellows rather than from his new, peculiar foes. His fellows, Stryber and Sydwinsky, however, were obviously so stricken with the memory of how Mitch and Byrd had been ripped to shreds that they simply couldn't move.

Captain Bailey was the only one willing to do anything.

"Fuck this," the captain sneered, marching into the open clearing, drawing the eyes of the raptors like steel filings toward a magnet. He marched toward a raptor with beady eyes and a narrow maw. One who glowered over a motorcycle and already looked intimidated--eager to jump at the least provocation.

"Get the fuck off my bike," the captain said, pretending not to notice the sentry dinosaurs tightening their circle around him.

"Move it!" he shouted, firing a few rounds from his machinegun into the brush beside the creature, trying to startle it; and succeeding. The creature seemed to cower down before him, arching its back like a cat, raising its tail and wagging it menacingly while glaring up at his face and hissing an open-mouthed hiss across its many, many, short, sharp teeth.

"Captain," warned Spaulding, still eyeing his own overly-curious counterpart with uneasiness.

"Fuck this!" the captain shouted, more loudly. "Move it!"

He hadn't noticed how the other raptors had walked fully in to the clearing, walking around the humans, circling, gazing, hissing.

"Colonel..?" whined Sydwinsky, his voice virtually a moan.

"I said," growled the captain, "_move it!_"

And he slapped the animal's pointed beak with his MP5.

The creature reeled back from the attack and stepped backward from the motorcycle, backward from the captain.

"See?" Bailey said. "Be firm."

But Spaulding was terrified, flexing his jaws.

"I tried this once," the colonel said through clenched teeth.

As though a complement to the colonel's comment, the sharp-beaked dinosaur lunged forward at Bailey, poking him hard in his chest with its closed mouth. Bailey went backwards in shock, falling to his rear and gazing up at the thing with renewed respect, and no small amount of awe.

"Ouch..." the captain muttered, touching the bruise he felt rising beneath his shirt.

It opened its mouth and howled down at the captain, sending an unearthly chill through the depths of all of the humans' souls.

But, suddenly, the one examining Spaulding struck him down with its claw.

Spaulding went down to the ground, bleeding, looking up--

Realizing that his attacker had just given the other raptors their cue.

* * *

Lara wished she could simply run backwards and keep firing--but if she tried, she would never have been able to move quickly enough.

The Goliath had taken after her in the citadel's streets in barely more time than it had taken Lara to land, count her blessings for not breaking her legs, turn around, and dash. Its feet landed upon the space where she had been standing only a few seconds before; and, while she was able to burn off a full series of shots before it had fully regained its balance, she only afterward, to her horror, realized what her wasted seconds had cost her. Even amateur sprinting champion Lara Croft couldn't outrun a monster with fifteen-foot strides on a straightaway. It gleefully smashed its way through every wooden structure she ducked into; and, while there were also a few stone structures ahead that even the tyrannosaur couldn't obliterate, this was an unfamiliar city. Its streets twisted unpredictably. It could dead-end at any point. Lara couldn't count on being able to hide. Her only hope was to become unpredictable; changing course spontaneously, making use of her small size and agility versus the monster's bulk and insuperable speed. It could kill her easily on a straight run; but, as on the wall, the one thing it could never do is snap ninety-degree corners at a dead heat.

Luckily, her theory worked the very first time: As she neared the end of her first straight dash, she reached out with a hand to grab the edge of a stone building, spinning herself around an intersection-- ninety-degrees from instant death. She hadn't any idea how tightly she'd timed the evasion; hadn't been aware of just how very close the monster's mouth had been when she suddenly wasn't there anymore. But, as she span around the corner, spinning a full pirouette before regaining her balance, she was given a quick glimpse of the monster's mouth snapping shut with a resounding thud in just the place her body had been the instant before. The creature then continued in its original direction while Lara followed her pirouette through and dashed away, perpendicularly.

She heard the thing howl in frustration as it went the wrong way, it obviously having believed it had finally caught up with her just as she had escaped. She heard stone and wooden buildings--priceless archeological treasures--shattering and exploding; their debris scattered across the dirt ground while the rex attempted to defy physics and turn itself around. By the sounds of its rampage, the sounds of it destroying everything in its path--its wanton, seemingly needless violence--Lara could only guess that the beast was deliberately lashing out at the various structures and crushing them purely for the sake of personal rage.

She kept dashing; adding speed, adding determination, adding her very last ounce of reserve--this was perhaps the only lead the monster would give her. She could hear it crushing things on the other side of the buildings to her right. It was finally far away and behind her. She listened to it while it trailed a path of destruction in one direction and then in another; searching, searching, for the fleeing little track star it had just lost.

The road before her was bordered by sizable stone buildings, many as tall or taller than the walls that surrounded the city itself--comprising a neighborhood that was becoming less residential and more official-looking by the block. It wasn't long before there were no more wooden shacks nor even plots where shacks would once have stood. Instead, there were only stone buildings. She was beginning to feel as though she had stepped from an ancient village of shacks and dirt and into an ultra-modern one of skyscrapers and pavement. If it weren't for the buildings' clearly ancient style of architecture, their size would have disqualified her assumptions about their age.

It was while admiring the city's seeming incongruities that she realized the sounds of the elsewhere destruction had gradually trailed off and stopped. It was then that she felt the breezes shifting around her, indicating that the thing was coming down from somewhere above.

She dashed; but that was her mistake.

The beast had somehow ascended to the rooftops of the stone buildings and had finished its search from the air. Spotting its quarry, it had intercepted her by leaping from rooftop to rooftop above her head, chasing her down until it could cut her off at an intersection. When it launched itself after her, it laid down on its side and plowed into the buildings on the other side of the intersection, turning its face so that Lara, too close to stop, would run right into its mouth.

The monster's head hit the ground on its side, its jaws wide open. It was dragging its cheek across the ground while Lara spastically tried to keep herself from stumbling right in. Its massive body convulsed in an effort to strike like a cobra and catch her before she could stop. It whipped its head upright, snapping closed its jaws, anticipating the sweet taste of victory. But the bite, fast and furious though it was, skewered no delicious human flesh. Instead, the beast felt the weight of its should-be kill bounding from its lip, to its snout, to its head--as Lara jumped at the last instant before entering its mouth. She used its quick-closing lips as a springboard to vault herself above its head, somersaulting in air. She somehow landed on top of its bony skull.

The tyrannosaurus rex, baffled, closed its mouth and pushed its gigantic supine body up from its belly, looking around for its missing nugget. It took it another half second, while rising toward its full mammoth height, to notice the extra weight on its head. Its eyes rolled up in their sockets as it realized where she was, and then it roared in humiliated rage.

When the dinosaur kipped its nose into the air to throw her off, it sent Lara Croft sailing again--but this time Lara went up in a long-jumper's graceful arc, bouncing first off the monster's ribcage, and then leaping to the ground. The monster nearly took a bite out of its own hide trying to snap at her. Its tail demolished two fresh buildings in its clumsy spin after her.

But Lara was already sprinting up the inclining road.

It howled and followed, chasing her to the top of the smoking stuppa.

* * *

The soldiers could tell that once the attack began, it would be fast and furious. They could already tell that all of this initial hesitation was nothing more than a period of patient evaluation, a looking-over of their adversaries--or, more troubling, a ritual made necessary by the nature of the game they were playing.

And it was a sense that they were being _played_ with that made their minds and hearts well-over with terror. The striped one had lashed out at the colonel, and the pointy-nosed one had stabbed the captain with nary a hesitation, and yet each returned immediately afterward to their seemingly passive, unnervingly considerate, patient, poise. They weren't acting impulsively, nor rashly, nor even terribly aggressively; they were just _playing_. This was all one big game to them. They circled, looking, toying.

The pointy-snouted one looked down over the still-supine Bailey, snapping and howling at him, taunting him; clearly giving him the space to stand back up, offering him another shot. That human was _its_. The other raptors passed the helpless Bailey without a second look; prowling into the clearing after the others. The one with the big eyes, its sockets wrinkled and sagging with old age, jaunted uneasily toward the soldiers near the cliff, not settling on any one of them, but rather looking them each over, sniffing, examining; huffing and puffing at what it found.

But the other raptors were more aggressive. There was one whose light-tan face seemed perpetually smiling; whistling sounds coming smoothly, menacingly from a spot in its gums where it was missing a few teeth. It looked over the soldiers only briefly before selecting Sydwinsky to torment, closing on him personally and shooting its evil breaths directly into his ear. The soldier was almost too terrified to move; but he managed to twitch, at least, at the beast's touch. Stryber was approached by a husky raptor that had been guarding a motorcycle, its color almost crimson, but with darker patches on its legs and head. The monster seemed almost peaceable at first, circling Stryber at a polite distance, looking curiously, almost kindly into his face. And then it let out such an ear-splitting, nerve-jarring _bark _that the soldier nearly threw his weapon down and ran. As it was, when his body involuntarily jumped, the beast jumped with him--bouncing excitedly, readying to chase--and then not attacking when Stryber stood his ground. The monster waited. Waited. And it barked at him again.

All the while, a smaller, reddish-brown raptor was circling, hoping excitedly, not approaching any human, but, just the same, raising their blood-pressures for the insane, almost joyful screeches it made to fill the silence. It went once near Ross, but when he kicked at it, it retreated from him haughtily and visited Rainy and Leipig instead--sniffing at the two helpless, kneeling humans and squeaking shrilly. Leipig, clearly, wanted to strike the little creature, but dared not--out of fear of bursting the tension in the clearing and accelerating the violence they all knew was inevitably on its way.

The true violence would instead start not with the humans, but with the black raptor. It was larger than all of the others, and its hide was so dark it made even its own shadow seem light. Even its eyes--its corneas--were black, making them invisible against its face; leaving the soldiers to cower at the sight of the thing, not knowing who among them was being sized up for victimhood. This one was bolder and less patient than all of the others. It was not content to circle and gawk, or squawk and taunt. It wanted blood; and it was mercilessly indiscriminate about which human would give to him. While Stryber was busily shrinking from the barker, the black one came and intercepted him from the side, taking the barker's toy away with not even the courtesy of acknowledging its fellow demon. It simply strode over to Stryber and took a bite.

With Stryber's pain came the first defensive bullets--which was the signal for the clearing to became a bloodbath. The striped one lunged at Spaulding, the pointy-nosed one at Bailey, and the whistling one at Sydwinsky. All the soldiers weapons the came to life--and the raptor with the big eyes lunged after the machinegun-firing Bailey, the black one and the barking one double-teamed Stryber, and the smaller one snapped at Leipig.

Colonel Spaulding rolled from the ground to his haunches and opened up full-auto on the striped one, pelting its body up and down, leaving tiny reddish dots. The X122's seemed unable to inflict as much as a contusion on it. Seeing his efforts wasted firing upon its misleadingly vulnerable chest and belly, he raised his stream to its eyes and face, targets that he had probably discounted before for their difficulty to hit. He was trying to stand all the while, trying to retreat, trying to drive the monster off.

"The bikes!" the colonel cried, "get to the bikes!"

But the others were busy. The black one had bitten through Stryber's arm; and, while he flailed the other arm harmlessly against the beast's skull, his weapon lingered uselessly in the bitten hand. In the meantime, the barking one was attacking the Stryber from the rear, gouging his back with its claws. Ross was doing his best to help, firing at the black one and the barking one, but Stryber was wailing in agony, and he had finally dropped his machinegun.

That was when Leipig moved--startling the screeching raptor, which had been skittishly attempting to torment him. As he gathered Stryber's dropped weapon, the mini-demon yelped in fright and leaped away. Leipig span, looking for more dangerous targets.

Opposite Leipig, Sydwinsky was turning his full-auto fire against the whistling raptor, plugging it in the face, trying to knock out a few more of its incredibly tough teeth. Leipig quickly joined him; and, back to back, they cut into the black and the barking ones, trying to drive them off poor Stryber. They had almost drawn them away when the black responded like a juggernaut, turning their direction and marching swiftly, coolly, upon them.

Leipig went into a frenzy of horror, redirecting his fire up and down the creature, searching for a non-existent vulnerable place; not noticing how the barker had maneuvered itself behind the black and around to Leipig's side. Suddenly, its tail lashed out and knocked Leipig's weapon to the ground. On the same lightning strike, it shot its tail up again, catching him under his thorax. It threw him up and backward with force of a catapult--ten feet into the air. He landed, shattered internally, on the far side of a small knoll near the cliff's edge.

Sydwinsky span at Leipig's sudden disappearance, and he saw the vicious creatures bearing down upon him in his turn. The whistling raptor retreating, its face bloody, Sydwinsky opened up on black raptor. He fired, and fired accurately; but it barely slowed it down.

In the meantime, the colonel and the captain had given up even attempting to outflank them. They were unloading their weapons point-blank upon their raptors. Colonel Spaulding was firing his MP5 directly against the striped one's skull, while Captain Bailey was literally choke-holding the spiky-snouted one and firing into its seemingly flaccid underbelly. Whether it was working or not was difficult to know, but at least they weren't being bitten. Sydwinsky and Ross both took the lesson, steeling themselves for action, screaming their battle cries, and charging at their own dinosaurs.

Rainy was still kneeling in petrified terror in the same place where he been before the attack began, but didn't want to see what was coming next. He turned away, crawling over the knoll where Leipig had been thrown. He touched the major's twisted, mangled, body and expected the worst--but the old man stirred.

"Major?" asked Rainy, whispering as though terrified he might be heard by the raptors, blocked from sight by only an inch of hillock. "Major Leipig?"

The major's eyes were drooping, his consciousness flagging. His mouth was running with blood. He was only barely able to move. He reached underneath his crippled body as though he couldn't hear Rainy's pleas. It was as though he hadn't yet even noticed the boy. But then Leipig revealed the plastic case with his computer's flashram card inside, and Rainy realized what was happening.

"No," Rainy moaned. "We can make it!"

"Take it," the man barely whispered. "Take it!"

His exclamation took a toll on his depleted life, and he gasped a breath and began to shiver with fresh shock after shouting it. Rainy answered his severity with seriousness of his own, accepting the tiny plastic gift and then tolerating the old man's clumsy fingers while they themselves saw to placing it into Rainy's buttoned-down thigh pocket. The old man patted the closed pocket proudly with his bloody fingers, as though it were his legacy, successfully guaranteed.

"Hang on," said Rainy, glancing over the knoll at the on-going battle, seeing it going poorly, but lying: "we're gonna make it."

But Leipig shook his weary head and revealed another prize. It was a black can, smaller than an aerosol can, but of similar proportions. It was black, with a rubber mouth-piece on the top and red letters on its side, reading: **SPARE-AIR**.

"Know how to use...this?" he asked.

Rainy shook his head.

The old man put the can into Rainy's hands, ensuring the boy was holding it in both, gripping his own fingers over the boy's fingers until was sure he was holding it tightly and securely. He held Rainy's hands there for a moment while he spoke, imparting a warmth to him, despite the fact that his skin was actually cold and clammy to the touch.

"Put your mouth over the top," the major murmured. "Push the button and breathe."

"I don't understand..." whispered Rainy, not fully recognizing how Leipig was looking past him, over the cliff's edge, over the water flowing out toward the pyramid in the distance.

"You can make it..."

And suddenly Rainy understood what Leipig was asking.

"No..." Rainy moaned, feeling his skin crawling with anticipation of the awful cold and pain that was to come. He wanted loose of Leipig's now icy-feeling death grip.

"Find Lara Croft," Leipig said.

"No!"

"You can make it," Leipig said, pushing Rainy over the cliff and into the rushing waters a dozen meters below, screaming at the last: "Go!"

It wasn't smoke.

* * *

That was the realization that started her dashing.

At first she had been running backwards as much as she could; firing barrage after barrage against the monster's face and eyes--since it was finally beginning to have an effect. She had perhaps succeeded in partially blinding it. Its eyes had become swollen and red. But throughout her running-fighting, running-fighting, climbing the inclining road toward the stuppa-top, the refrain that had been echoing through her mind had been: _What the hell are you doing, stupid girl?_ Because, based upon her still-vivid memories of their struggle underwater, it could clearly keep hunting her, even without sight.

And then she realized the stuppa's alter-smoke wasn't smoke at all. It was mist. It was white, rising, thick, vapory mist; coming up from the center of the stuppa, forming a column of rising white that was greater than twenty feet wide. It was coming from a hole in the stuppa top, leading down to--_where else?_--the great lake's vortex beneath the pyramid! The mist was rising from a hole in the floor, at least twenty feet across--one that was perfectly concealed behind a wall of smoky mist. A trap door.

_A trap_...

Lara stopped shooting and had started dashing. She could easily jump twenty feet at a dash--and while, of course, so could a twenty-five foot tyrannosaur, the tyrannosaur could only barely see to begin with, and the trap door was completely obscured by mist. She replaced both pistols into their holsters, and she dashed, and dashed, and dashed--building up speed not only to escape the tyrannosaurus, who was also increasing speed, but also to gain the momentum she needed to clear the obstacle. She would dive directly into the seeming-smoke and would land safely on the other side. The tyrannosaur? It would _run_ into the mist, it would not quite get its scraggly little arms up high enough to catch the opposite edge--and Lara Croft would gun its little finger tips from any catch it _can_ achieve--and then the tyrannosaurs rex will go the way of the dodo bird--as it was _supposed_ to have done sixty-five million years ago.

Tyrannosaurus rex himself, however, would seem to have other plans. It had apparently grown tired of Lara's chasing games, and would seem ready, simply, to _eat_. Its long legs seemed to grow even longer, making each stride slightly longer, and faster, than the last. Lara Croft reached her peak speed in only half the time it took the tyrannosaur, but the tyrannosaur was destined to achieve a speed better compared to that of a motor vehicle than to a desperate, pipe-dreaming, would-be dinosaur survivor.

The thing came over her shoulder while she neared the threshold of the alter-hole, just as she prepared to jump. She felt its hot, urgent breath pouring over her, stinging like an acid shower. She was moving too fast to dodge or turn, but the mouth would get her before she entered the mist unless she evaded it somehow. So she _ducked_--at a speed so fast that her knees felt ready to buckle and fail. She squatted at the edge of altar's threshold, feeling the monster's vicious jaws snapping down just above where her head and chest would otherwise have been.

In the next instant, she was in the air, soaring as best she could. She felt herself flailing through the air, only half as high as she should have been. Only half as ready for what came next. When she stuck the other side, she heaved a sigh not only from the heavy impact against her chest, but also from her recovery from her terrorized near-panic at her realization that the hole was even wider than she had anticipated. She consoled herself thinking about how much more poorly the dinosaur will do--and how much more satisfying it will therefore be to watch while the bugger trips over the edge and stumbles into the abyss.

Instead, however, a shadow passed over her--only dimly visible through the white mist. She then heard the unmistakable sound of two gigantic feet landing on the stuppa-top, just past her. Confidently. Competently. She heard the stone squeaking beneath its feet, and she could see a vague outline of its tail passing over her, while the creature faced about.

Frantically, Lara tore into the stone with her hands, trying to fling herself up and over the edge--before the--before it--

And her efforts to rise were hellishly assisted.

She felt her shoulders and back compressing; and heard a sound like flesh being crushed between razor-sharp pinchers; and she felt herself rising swiftly from the hole, swiftly out of the mist, swiftly up into the air. She waited for the pain and the blood and the horror to overcome her--glancing around at the body of the beast, its brown chest and shoulders dark against the shimmering mist beside it--but only for long enough to realize that she was twisting back and forth in air as though attached by a string. When the string broke and she fell, she was almost as amused as grateful to still be alive.

The tyrannosaurus rex had "bitten" her by her men-in-black-issued canvas knapsack. Even as Lara looked up from where she had landed on her hands and knees at the altar's edge, she could see the black shredded fabric hanging from the monster's mouth like the seat of a villain's pants in the mouth of a cartoon guard dog.

She thought it would swiftly realize its mistake; but, for some reason, with this prize on its lips, the creature seemed oddly disinterested in Lara. It raised its head still farther into the air, as though it hadn't cared or even noticed that the entire mass of its meaty prize had just been lost. It wasn't until the contents of her eviscerated bag spilled out upon the stuppa-top that the monster even looked at her again.

The creature went after the bag's contents with such speed that Lara, sitting next to where it all landed, almost sidled back into the very hole she had just escaped. It was only then that it became clear that it wasn't her, but her glowing Idol, that the tyrannosaur wanted. As it landed beside her, its eyes locked upon it and glazed with fiery desire; its lips drooled for it hungrily. Its mouth came down to scoop it all up--along with everything around it--along with, Lara, too--! Her hands acted on their own: They tossed the Idol over the edge, into the abyss. It was compulsive--a last-ditch, desperate act--but, almost unbelievably, the mighty flesh-eating tyrannosaurus rex _followed _the Idol.

It went over the edge, into the hole, and straight down into hell.

Utterly incredulous at what she was witnessing, Lara had leaped to her feet even before the mammoth's body had fully passed her by. She stumbled back; gaping, unbelieving. It never even attempted to stop itself. She gazed after it, damning her eyes for their inability to see through all the white mist to what was happening below. She stood on the stuppa-top, hyperventilating with incredulity. She was thinking that what she had just witnessed had to be the most unbelievable thing her mind could fathom--but she was instantly wrong.

First, the entire world shook. There was singular, jarring tremor; like when dynamite explodes.

It coursed through the pyramid; and Lara would almost have sworn that in that instant, even the canopies of the distant trees on the mainland shore, so far away and misty, were shaken by its blast. At first she discounted her own impression as ludicrous; but then the blast was punctuated by an explosive flash of light that apparently filled the entire inside-cavern space, and she heard the tyrannosaur screaming in an agony so horrific--so _traumatic_--that it made the very air shake. It was coming from deep within the pit, far below even where the water's vortex should have been.

Whatever was happening, it was mechanical--certainly unnatural--violent, and feverish.

The dinosaur's cries became staccato, and then reverbrative; and, finally, _seismic_. Lara could feel the ground beneath her feet trembling at the same frequency. And she could see--she could be _certain_, this time, she was seeing--the trees and distant shores of the main landmass shaking with exactly the same tremors.

And then it all exploded.

Lara was knocked from her feet as the whole world went hazy gray from sheer vibration. The stuppa, the pyramid, the landmasses, the lakes and rivers, the sky itself exploded into a massive earthquake--raging, screaming, shaking the biosphere's insides, reshaping the land, dropping trees, redirecting rivers!

And then, as suddenly as the earthquake had begun, it was over.

Lara found herself on her rear, still feeling uncomfortably close to that hole, though she had put more than twenty feet of space between herself and its strangely deadly maw. With the world tranquil again, and with no monsters to run from, and no enemies to fight, the afterglow of the orgasmic event was strangely, troublingly, satisfying. She was content to sit for a moment and rest. To resist the temptation to plan, to consider, or to evaluate. She wasn't even moved to more than superficially think about how the rising white mist was suddenly laced with a sharp red rising streak, snaking about its vapory column. The streak gradually thickened and darkened, becoming redder, denser, and more voluminous.

But, by the time she returned to herself, the red had faded and the mist was white again, as always.

* * *

After the boy had been gone awhile and he was almost too tired to keep looking after him, Leipig stopped being afraid.

There was a tremendous beauty to the inside biosphere that he hadn't been able to appreciate until he had only this little bit of life left. There was so much beauty to be admired and experienced that he stopped perceiving the gunshots and the screams in the distance, and perceived instead only the beautiful things. The things that swelled his heart with joy and comfort: The birds that sang their strange and beautiful songs. The breeze that whispered in the trees. The musical rhythm of the sheeting waters. The red and blue flowers that grew near his face. The lovely pink ribbon within the gentle white plume hovering above the distant pyramid.

He found a strange, stirring comfort in the sight of that red-streaked plume. It was like the smoldering cinders that rose in the smoke of bonfires. Signals to mark the triumph of the young over their rites of adulthood; or angels accompanying the elders to their eternal rest in the sky. He was so tranquil, so serene, that he didn't even feel the big-eyed raptor who had found him there and had begun to bite into his flesh.

The only thing he felt was the shaking. The shaking that was more violent than he had imagined his death shakes should be. Their roar filled his mind, and he felt an unexpected sensation of falling--and another of intense, sudden cold. But, even when he found he could no longer breathe, it just didn't bother him.


	19. Chapter Eighteen: The Hunted

"_I hear someone calling me_

_Where they call from I can see no light_

_Walk through fire_

_To me now_

_And the fire I can feel..._

"_Obstacles are in my way_

_Just beyond them lies what I don't know_

_Walk through blind_

_Know I'm here_

_There is nothing I can't see..._

"_Bare bones! Bare bones!_

_I've been to hell_

_Now I back--Stripped to the bone!_

_I've been to hell_

_Now I'm back_

_And I'm taking all I need!_

_Bare Bones!"_

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:** **"**The Hunted.**"**

Even before she had heard the voice, Lara was already feeling deeply troubled.

Bean had told her that the ILC, her Idol, was the key to vindicating the villagers' hopes in her. They had entrusted her to deliver it for them, to the authorities, as proof of their enemies' atrocities. She had watched the villagers dying for the hope she had brought to them, slaughtered for their faith in her. She had held the physical manifestation of that faith in her hands--and had thrown it away. Maybe the dinosaur would have devoured her for it, maybe the dinosaur had merely been curious about its amazing light; Lara would never know. Lara only knew that her failure to make her trust a priority had cost her her destiny, and it had sheared the Ingu's sacrifice of its dignity. Though throwing the Idol had seemed perfectly right at the time, it seemed to put an end to her quest. She couldn't think of any more reason go on at all. What was the point? Without Rainy, without the Idol--

But then the voice shattered her contemplation.

"So," the jarring voice said.

It was a face she had not expected to see ever again. One she'd prayed she wouldn't.

"Kini," she hissed.

But the husky native was still speaking: "You are Qawalynn?"

"Stay there, you!" Lara snapped, her pistols coming swiftly from their holsters and aiming at his chest.

But Kini was still approaching, walking across the stuppa platform from the city's street, seeming bravely unconcerned with her aggression, despite the fact that he himself was--by all appearances, at least--completely unarmed. Kini walked to the stuppa top, ignoring Lara's sweaty fingers in their trigger wells, aiming at him. She snarled feverishly, searching him over, looking for a reason.

Looking for an excuse.

But she could only see passivity there. Calm, lucid, damnably confident passivity. She wanted to shoot, but she couldn't. There was still the old hatred in his eyes, but now they lacked the passionate, murderous intent that had characterized them earlier. Something about Kini had changed. Something about his ideas; his feelings; his motivations. His beliefs. Despite her own hateful desires, she couldn't see beyond his seeming harmlessness and into the black heart she felt certain must still be coldly grinding out its evil work within him. Instead of bullets, instead of defensive fury, Lara's mind ordered her to trigger the release of human sympathy and curiosity. Kini wasn't simply an enemy anymore, a faceless threat to be nullified. In the instant between his first demonstrating his somehow-survival from the rocks, to his present marching hotly into her comfortable sphere of personal space, he had somehow become a human being. For her to pull the trigger now would be murder; dealing him a thing no better than that which the men in black had dealt the natives in the clearing: Natives of whose tribe Kini was ostensibly, visibly--by his skin and his markings--a member. Morally paralyzed, Lara let him approach her, allowed him within a few feet of her own body, her pistols' barrels pressed meaninglessly against his belly, and she allowed him to speak.

"Qawa_lynn_," he growled contemptuously, his reeking breath billowing in her bangs. "So you will kill me, too, now?"

He kept pushing at her. Not content to merely enter her space, he pressed against her, against her guns. He pressed her backward until she stumbled--as much from physical as psychological pressure. Her guns at him had no effect. They had become meaningless.

"I am unarmed," said the native.

"I noticed," replied Lara, falsely threateningly. "So stop moving!"

"Why do you still hide behind false weapons, Qawalynn?"

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she demanded, but her voice quavered. It was less an inquiry than a defenseless, humiliated complaint.

"It is who you believe you are, is it not?" Kini asked, positioning her where he wanted her to be, her back to the empty space above the pyramid's cutaway wedge--where, far below, the tides of the threshold of the cavern's vortex swirled massively, sucking down its constant diet of water and debris. "Throw away your infidel's guns and prove it to me. Prove it to _me!_"

"What do you want?" asked Lara timidly, looking downward past her own heels and over the edge where empty air and a canal of rippling water beckoned. She felt a cruel certainty in his words, a fiendish certainty. It was as though his heart surged with empathy for her loss, and he understood the agony of her failure as sharply as were it his own; but he _delighted_ in it. He relished it. She felt that sadistic charge empowering him and disabling her, making her wonder if his seeming empathy could be mere coincidence. Was it possible that he actually knew what she was going through? But his next words--

"Who have you left to save now?"

--erased every doubt.

Lara felt crushed, defeated, suffocated by his words; confirming in her, as they did, her own inner agony--like a spark igniting pre-hot fumes.

Her eyes drifted back behind her, and saw the beckoning waters--literally calling her name.

She fell away from him.

She fell away into the threshold of the abyss itself.

* * *

When the cliffside exploded, the soldiers had already been vanquished. 

The colonel was on his back, buried deep below the stripes of his prehistoric aggressor like a man already entombed; its impenetrable leather hide still refusing to buckle or warp beneath his still going, still desperate, fully-automatic, point-blank machinegun assault. He clung tenaciously to its neck while it moved and lifted him--throwing and dragging him--its tail ever whipping, fiendishly, like an angry switch, in the air.

The captain's predicament was similar. Though he was not buried, and though he was coping wholly without the colonel's comfortable-looking bite-less perch upon his dinosaur's neck, he was also on the ground, and was also trying, failingly, to keep his own pointy-nosed monster from eating him alive. The beast was at his feet, snapping at his boots, shredding leather and unlucky flesh. His agile foe took gunshot after gunshot, and as many double-booted jack-kicks as the captain could manage; but he could only keep it back for so long--soon it would rip through his defenses and into his quivering flesh.

The other soldiers has also been driven back, driven down, or driven under. Sydwinsky had been captured by his whistling malefactor; pinned the ground, and shrived of his weapon. He was screaming while it sang in his face and gloated, preparing to taste its delicious, soon-to-be gory prize. Ross, meanwhile, had been knocked to the side by the barking raptor's tail and was stumbling away from it, the small screeching raptor nipping at his elbows. He retreated from everything, deaf to his teammates' screams--even poor Stryber's, who, under the claws of the black, was being ripped flesh from bone right where he stood. Nothing seemed to penetrate Ross but his own horror--until the air exploded, and the world turned topsy-turvy, and he saw Stryber caught in a hellish image that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The ground rocked underneath the feet of the operations force and their incomprehensible combatants, and the air ignited into a brilliant shade of orange, and then yellow, and then crimson --all in a split second's succession. Disoriented, blinded, and dizzy, they didn't know that the ground was falling out from under them--_literally_ out from under them--until their bodies struck the stunning cold water and were consumed into the undertow.

The last two things they realized before hitting that sheeting outward flow was that the cliff where they had been fighting had been utterly demolished by an inexplicable earthquake; and that the black and the whistling raptors had, at the last second, grabbed and then refused to release their two sides of poor, poor Stryber. As they fell from the ruptured clifftop, they ripped his blood-covered body in half like a wishbone.

* * *

Rainy couldn't right himself. It seemed that every time he got near the coursing, rippling surface, all he then saw were his own ankles--as his body flipped backwards, and upside down, and over and over. Clinging tightly to his tiny air supply, he was balled into a fetal curl and dragged down by the undertow. It looped him around and upside down. It pushed him upward and then cheated him of the surface. It forced him so deep down in the freezing cold conveyor-belt-like flow that the bullying little mean-spirited bottom-pebbles took him for the new guy and took out their anger on him, pelting him up and down. He didn't blame them for their anger, though. He wanted to lash out at something, too. 

It was infuriating to be so powerless.

The water was taking him _somewhere_.

He could feel it.

Strangling him.

Blinding him.

It was collecting around him, tightening its currents around him like a boa constrictor around its prey. He was about to be shoved right down the devil's throat. Him and everything else: the pebbles, the debris, the dirt, the murkiness. The once-crystal stream had become impenetrable; and his blindness--the last straw--made a panic well up in Rainy that found him feeding off the very power and energy that the stream was narrowing and focusing around him. The hungry rumble of the vortex untapped some hitherto undiscovered reserve of strength in him, and he found the courage to uncoil his shaking, whimpering, body and rip his way to the filth-clouded surface. All he wanted was to _see_--at least to _glimpse--_the agony and death that awaited him, but--

"_Lara!_"

It was a scream that cost him his breath and his canned air, but it was worth it. Even while his can slipped from his clumsy over-excited fingers, Lara responded. She had been standing high above, her back to the pyramid-top's ledge, at the inner-end of what appeared to be a canal into the wolfish vortex that was half-beneath the middle of the pyramid. After she heard him, she dived backwards into the wash with flawless Olympic form--slicing into the currents between him and the half-covered whirlpool.

At first he feared she had made some horrid miscalculation. She was gone, and he was shooting up the canal, straight into the gurgling maw. Its reverberations made the water scream with some unnaturally choppy echo, as though the spilling waters were trying uselessly to douse the searing straits of Hell. He kicked away from the vortex with a fury, kicking for the sides of the runway--and almost kicked away Lara Croft before she could rescue him.

Lara came up directly beneath him, dodging his feverishly kicking legs--using their power without halting them. She directed his and her own stroking fury to get them to the nearest edge of the lightening current. At the corner before the gaping maw of the underwall horror, Lara latched her fingers into a crevice, anchoring herself at a narrow ledge that ran along the bottom of the runway wall. She held panicking Rainy with her other arm, but her hold on both began to deteriorate rapidly.

"Go, Rainy!" Lara shouted over the water's screaming roar. "Climb past! Go!"

Rainy was hesitant to move at first, though he understood her meaning clearly. He knew that there was no other choice but to crawl across her body and along her arm; but to do so meant to add tension to the already tenuous hold between the rocks and Lara's one-hand's worth of seemingly dainty fingers. To move at all implied risk; to kick and struggle against her body-as-an-anchor seemed absurdly suicidal. But this was only because he had forgotten who his partner was. After his moment's hesitation, he struggled past her; fearlessly exploiting her hips, her belly, her chest, and finally her shoulders before scrambling to safety onto the ledge.

Lara herself was quick to follow, pulling herself from the dirty water and breathing heavily from her ordeal. In a few seconds, both were safely upon the inches-wide ledge; but, before Rainy could ask after her well-being and learn the answers to all of the questions burning in his mind, she shushed him--and looked past his shoulder toward the lake beyond the canal opening--where he instinctively knew she was seeing a good reason for him to obey her and be quiet.

* * *

It was the darkness that was surprising. 

They came up from the water silently, looking around, each caught in his own private whirlwind of thoughts and conjectures, wondering what had just happened to them, how and why--and where this place might be where they had so suddenly, so unexpectedly, arrived.

The soldiers had been whipping through the water, at first drowning and bleeding to death, sucked well beneath the surface of the violent waters; half-buried and half-pulverized by the rocks falling after them from the collapse of their clifftop clearing. They were instantly grateful that they had been separated from their savage attackers, even though drowning would have seemed an even more imminent danger. Luckily, they realized that there was a solution to that problem that didn't necessarily involve returning to the shore and to their adversaries' unpleasant hospitality.

Their cans of Spare-Air had given them a reprieve from both battle and fatigue. Once they had gone down, they had simply relaxed their bodies and waited, breathing from their little black cans. What they hadn't quite considered, however, was the destination toward which they had been inevitably journeying. Most of them had simply presumed the waters would eventually flow into someplace more calm. It hadn't occurred to them that they were at but the threshold of places vastly more rapacious.

When they had begun to feel the terror they should have been allowing themselves to feel long before, their panicked struggles brought them only clear enough of the great maw of the vortex to be sucked ruthlessly down a secondary one.

And when they came up, everything was placid, echoey, and calm.

They were speechless.

The ceiling of the mysterious chamber was low, and the walls were far away and cave-like. Water filled the chamber, and their feet couldn't find a bottom beneath them. They treaded as though it were a swimming pool, watching new water flowing in through the broad cascade behind them. They had spilled in through that opening, too; but, clearly, there was no getting out that way--the flow was too massive. They were too busy admiring the place to consider escape in any case. Too busy contemplating the dark.

Rather, the inexplicable _not-complete _dark.

Certainly, there was light pouring in through the cascade; but that vague and isolated rainbow couldn't account for the delicate ambiance that pervaded the entire rough, low-ceilinged, chamber. The corners, the walls, the waters of chamber all maintained their brown and black contrasts despite their distance from that obvious light source. There was less light than there might be with a good bright lamp, but there was enough to see depth and texture. Enough to make them all glance about themselves as they emerged, searching for its source. But, finding no explanation, and realizing the pointlessness of the search, the soldiers quickly came back to their proper minds.

"We're alive!" Spaulding whispered, though it almost seemed a shout.

"Goddamnit," cursed Sydwinsky, shivering. "I got bit back there."

"We all got bit," sneered Captain Bailey.

"We need to get out of this water," Spaulding said, responding to the shiver in Sydwinsky's voice.

"Agreed," said the captain.

"Roll call," said the colonel. "We got everybody?"

"That's left," muttered Ross grimly.

"Stryber?" asked the colonel.

"Hope not," said Sydwinsky, echoing Ross' obvious thoughts.

"What about the major?" asked Bailey.

"Didn't see him," said Ross. "Don't think so."

The colonel was thoughtful a moment before saying, "It may be just as well."

"What about the boy?" asked the captain.

Ross shook his head.

"We should move," said the colonel, spotting what appeared to be a bank.

The soldiers then said nothing for a long time, swimming slowly toward the edge.

Sydwinsky finally broke the awkward silence.

"Whose fucking idea was this, anyway?" he asked, holding his empty can of Spare-Air above the water's surface.

"Mine," said the captain flatly. "A lot of white water in the AO. It seemed smart at the time."

"They don't pay you enough, Johnny," said the colonel.

"They sure as shit don't," said the captain, but his tone spoke of how it wasn't just his competence that was underpaid.

The others felt their wet wounds beneath the surface of the water and wondered if they'd stopped bleeding yet.

"They're still out there," said Sydwinsky.

"Probably," said the captain

"What'll we do?" asked Ross.

The same," said the colonel, reaching the edge and climbing from the water. The bank was composed of pitted volcanic rock. "We're still here to do a job. We're going to do it, and then we're going to get the fuck out of here."

"Heard that," said Sydwinsky, climbing out. He rolled onto his back and remaining that way.

"Besides," the colonel continued, "they had to have drowned."

While the captain climbed onto the bank, he looked at Spaulding, doubtfully.

* * *

Eyes had always been the weak one. 

He couldn't run as fast, nor swim as long, nor climb as high, nor even stay awake as late. It was no surprise that after the land had broken and the water had taken them, Eyes would end up far removed from the others. He had been the only one unable to keep up with the Ugly Things in the water, and it was no surprise that when they reached shores of the White Place, and had encountered the sticky water, it was only Eyes who was swept away. Stripes had seen Eyes get pulled down and away, his big wrinkled eye-sockets vibrating in the stream. Stripes didn't care. He wouldn't miss Eyes one little bit.

But he was glad the others had made it. Black and Spike and Bark and Whistler. Screech had made it too, and was hopping about, squeaking excitedly; but Screech had proven hardly the ally the others had. In comparison, Eyes and Screech had both proved themselves relatively worthless; which only made his other four champions seem to shine with that much more greatness in his mind. Stripes had learned the value of having a following. He no longer thought about the group that tagged along with him as expendable followers, but rather as partners to be depended upon. They were his comrades. His _pack_.

Stripes had never been in a fight like the one against the Ugly Things. They had caused him so much pain that there was juice just like the tasty juice that prey animals have in them running out of places on his body. He'd never known that he had tasty juice inside of him. And the others, too: they were all spattered with juicy patches where their hides had been darkened by the Ugly Thing's Noisy Pain. All, that is, save Screech; who, like Eyes, had hardly done any fighting at all. Stripes thought back on the battle--fighting together, fighting like a pack; not competing, not squabbling, but running together; side by side, each one of them able to concentrate on his own Ugly Thing because he could be sure that the other members of the pack would be protecting him from the rest. It had been a glorious feeling--and one that Stripes would relish feeling again.

But the Ugly Things weren't around at the moment, and his pack was getting bored.

It was troubling. He had never been especially concerned about his followers before, never worried about whether they stayed together or not, because there had never been something so exciting, so truly _dangerous_ for him to lead them through. This was the one time he had faced a truly worthy opponent. These Ugly Things weren't like the Big One or any of the other creatures he had encountered in his life. Other creatures would fight and kill, or lose and run and be killed. That had always been the end of the game. But these Ugly Things, they would fight and fight and fight and yet not kill, and not run away (as long as you took away their Loud Things). They were adventure in animation. Living excitement. Unpredictable. Thrilling. Challenging. He had finally found an entertainment worthy of his fullest attention, and demanding the fullest participation of his followers. They wanted excitement? They wanted amusement? At long last he could truly provide it! So long as he could hold them together as a pack.

Which was why it was so troubling when Bark and Whistler suddenly broke from the group and attempted to go their separate way. Stripes was outraged! He jumped and howled and flicked his tail. He even lunged at Bark and tried to bite his neck; but, even if Whistler could be persuaded to stay, Bark had sensed something interesting far away behind the White Place, and he wanted to go see it, regardless of Stripes' intentions. The fact was, Stripes could sense that far away thing too, and while it did feel interesting, _here_ was where the Ugly Things were! He had seen them come! They might come up from the water at any moment, and Stripes wanted the pack together to greet them. But Bark had waited a long time for Stripes' Ugly Things to show up, and he simply didn't want to wait any longer. Bark left the group, and started climbing up the White Place's next-high-grounds towards the roof.

Stripes was dismayed. Grieved at the insult to his leadership. He turned to the other faces among his pack, and found them eagerly looking at him, waiting for him to justify their decision to remain loyal. Stripes knew that all he wanted to do was stay in that spot and wait patiently for the Ugly Things to come, but he could see that his pack were hoping for something different. Something brilliant. Knowing that he couldn't provide them something like that, at least not immediately, Stripes decided to give up. He would concede to Bark's mutinous demands and join him, hoping to salvage what remained of his tarnished leadership.

He started up the next-high-grounds, following Bark.

But he never made it to the top.

He paused at the side-edge, overlooking the fast water running swiftly below. He had suddenly felt something from there. Something which reminded him a little of the far-away interesting thing they were sensing from behind the White Place--though it also reminded him a little of the Ugly Things. When he looked down, straight down, he saw a pair of Ugly Things he hadn't noticed before. One was small, and other one was big and brightly colored. He remembered the other Ugly Things were all Black's color. There was no way he could have seen this one before and not remembered. These were _new _Ugly Things! How wonderful!

Stripes wailed at Bark to call him back to join them in the hunt!

But Bark ignored even Stripes' _most excited_ excitement voice.

Oh, well. Stripes let him go.

He didn't need Bark, not with five eager others to pick up the slack. He could depend on his pack. They too had also seen the Ugly Things, and were already excited. Who _needs_ Bark?

Let the hunt begin!

* * *

"_Lieutenant Wallis, this is Colonel Spaulding_," chirped his earpiece. 

It had been several minutes since the inexplicable lightshow and earthquake had rocked the daylight cave, and Wallis had been extremely worried about his colonel and the other soldiers of the operation's force. His own men, Cavanaugh, Doc, and Tripp, were all okay, back in the docking bay; but no one else had answered his radio queries in more than five minutes. He had been trying to continue his mission after Lara Croft, having led Cavanaugh up the ramping passage from the dock to the roof of the pyramid and to the empty streets of the ruined city, but it was a tremendous relief to hear the colonel's voice again, sounding safe and secure.

"Sir?" asked Wallis.

"_What's your status_?"

"We're in the city, sir--"

"_The where_?" asked the colonel, instantly cutting himself off and demanding instead: "_Do you have the girl?_"

"No, sir," said Cavanaugh, "no sign of her yet."

"_Well, keep looking_," the colonel ordered.

"Sir, is everyone alright? The earthquake--" asked Wallis.

"_We're fine_," said the colonel. "_We're under the pyramid someplace._"

"You're what?" snapped Cavanaugh.

"_Never mind, don't worry about it_," urged the colonel, "_just keep searching. We'll join up with you as soon as we can--just get me that girl!_"

"Yes, sir.

"_Yeah, and Wallis_," said Captain Bailey's voice.

"Go ahead, sir," said Wallis.

"_Look out for raptors_."

"For _what_, sir?"

* * *

The ledge was narrow and broken. It had never been intended for standing upon--hadn't likely been intended to exist at all. The row of mortared, chiseled, stones had probably been regular bricks in the wall; but, evidently, over the eons, the waters had gradually eased them slightly out from alignment, leaving behind an irregular, inches-wide surface along the breach, just above the surging waters. 

Inching along it was tricky business. They were hugging the wall, trying to fight the illusion of speed created by the rushing waters beneath them and the unsettling vertigo that went with it. To fall into the water again meant almost certain consumption by the meters-away vortex--they were too close to it to catch the side again. The bricks above their heads were too tightly mortared to climb--not that little Rainy likely had the finger-strength to do so in any case. Their only course was to inch along the ragged edge, hugging the wall, hand-in-hand, hoping the little rim wasn't really as fragile as it appeared.

But the real obstacle wasn't the ledge. It was what was standing beyond it.

She didn't know what they were at first; seeing only the rough movement at the corner of the steps' edge and the tip of an oblong, brown shape, like a giant's pointy nose. But she could tell that they weren't men--though they were approximately human height. It took the first one extending and twisting its head fully around the corner and glaring at her, opening its huge, toothy mouth, and blinking its huge eyes to make her realize what she was looking at.

"We may be in trouble," Lara said.

"No shit, Sherlock," Rainy snapped back.

* * *

When Cavanaugh and Wallis first heard the gunshots, their eyes flashed at one-another in an a mutual expression of excitement and disbelief. Their feet exploded into motion beneath them, taking them through the city streets and up the city-center ramp to the top of a ceremonial platform of some sort. There, Wallis ran immediately around a smoke-like column of mist. The shots they were hearing were coming from just beyond. 

He ran around, ready to fight, and saw--

"Kini?"

The native's uniform was tattered in places, lessened of some of its standard equipment and attachments, including his hat and his radio headset. But he obviously still had his MP5: He was firing, full-automatic, at something past the edge of the platform's eastern wall, down into the bay-like architectural excision that the designers of the pyramid had obviously deemed it necessary to incorporate. That their darkling team member had somehow survived his presumed demise was gratifying to the fledgling lieutenant--as it suddenly gave him one more troop to lead--but what was less gratifying was the fact that he appeared to be firing indiscriminately toward a target standing above a whirlpool who was carrying their primary objective on her back!

"What the hell are you doing!" Wallis shouted, dashing to the natives' side to avert his weapon's barrel.

Down below the edge of the platform, along the bay wall where Kini had been firing, was Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook, looking helpless, stranded, and completely vulnerable. Kini had been taking the advantage. Wallis allowed himself to take into account the soldier's lack of recent communication and his relative inexperience, but that mitigated his rage only so far as to allow him to resist the temptation to finish the bastard's tribe once and for all with a finalizing round to his spine.

Wallis grabbed Kini's barrel and tried to lift it into the air; but the strong native met his attempt with a shove, contemptuously dismissing him.

"She'll fall in the water!" Wallis protested.

"Not shooting at _her_," Kini snarled, slightly adjusting his fire, aiming again, firing some more.

"What?" asked Wallis.

Kini's hits were impacting the wall at the edge of the bay's farthest opening.

There was a brown snout of an angry…_something_…trying to gain admission to Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook's ledge.

"...The hell is _that_?" Cavanaugh asked.

But suddenly Wallis saw its full head and its full eyes--and a hint of its long clawed arms. He still didn't fathom what, precisely, they were seeing--as too much of its body remained concealed--but he could see enough to join with Kini in recognizing the threat of the thing:

Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook were _their_ prey, not some hungry dinosaur's!

Suddenly all three soldiers were firing their MP5's in the defense of their foes.

* * *

"What you think's going on up there, man?" asked Tripp. 

"I don't know," said Doc. "Just lay still."

"Am I going to make it, Doc?" asked Tripp, trying to sit up.

"You will if you shut up and quit worrying," Doc replied. "And just lay there and suck up these fluids like I'm telling you."

Doc had moved Tripp into a cove in the back of the largest chamber of the docking bay. It didn't seem any different from anyplace else, except for the embedded slab of burnished stone it had for its floor; but it was recessed into the back wall and was defensible. It was about ten-feet wide on each side, so Doc figured the whole team could fight from inside of it if they had to. There had been hundreds of those little Mongols on the mainland. Who knew what might decide to call on them there in that God-forsaken pyramid?

Outside of the cove, the walls were pocketed with deep floor-to-ceiling cubbies and shelves, carved into the stone walls in the same way the cove would seem to have been. They potched the walls like haphazard honeycomb, some holes visibly interconnected to their adjacent neighbors. The entire chamber wall, apart from their cove, resembled a ten-foot deep, up-and-down labyrinth. Only the cove, with its protective walls and its single avenue of approach, could be easily defended while also allowing Doc the space and light he needed to work on Tripp's injured body. Doc only wished he'd thought to move the Interlocutor into the cove, too. It might have been a tight fit with Tripp laying supine and with his medical gear scattered about, but it was absolutely impossible to defend the thing with it just sitting out there.

Ironically, Doc had only just begun to think these thoughts he realized he was too late. As he twisted the dial that regulated the flow of whole blood from the plastic IV bag through the needle in Tripp's arm, he noted Tripp's wide-eyed, shaking, glaring, terror.

"What?" asked Doc, snapping a look toward the open bay--and seeing for himself.

Whatever it was, it was man-like. Like an imitation man. Like a lizard-man.

It made him think of the lizard a brother of his had once kept as a pet. It had been a two-foot monitor. He recalled a day when he had been teasing that brother and his friends, and had stood the lizard up on its hind legs as though it were a lizard-man character from one of his brother's stupid cartoons. Just when his brother was adequately humiliated, the lizard bit down on Doc's hand--and Doc spent the rest of the afternoon in the local clinic getting stitches and shots. Doc didn't like lizards; and he was finding this real-life lizard-man particularly revolting.

And not only was it revolting to look at, it was sniffing the Interlocutor.

"What'll we do?" whispered Tripp.

"I'm going to kill it," said Doc, also whispering, beginning to stand.

"No!" whispered Tripp shrilly, desperate not to let the thing see him--and sighing with no small relief at how the animal continued its examination of the devise, somehow not hearing them. "What if its like the other ones? All tough and shit! Can you imagine? It's so _big_--"

"How tough could it be?" snapped Doc, pulling away, aiming his MP5.

When he walked into the open, it still took the beast several moments to notice him. It was searching over the Interlocutor, sniffing it, examining it, grazing its hull gently with its claws, searching.

"Hey!" Doc shouted.

"Doc!" protested Tripp.

But Doc wanted its attention. It was too close to the Interlocutor to risk firing at it. We wanted it to move.

"Hey, you!" shouted Doc, louder this time. "Fuckface!"

The walking lizard responded by abruptly shoving the Interlocutor onto its side.

"Shit!" Doc hissed, closing the gap between them at a trot.

He could see the creature's intentions now. Just before tossing the machine to its side, it had been digging its claws into a gap between a pair of its metal plates. Its act of throwing it down had actually been a bungled attempt to shake the plates apart. Immediately after turning the machine to its side, the creature scrambled over it, attacking that spot again with its claws, digging at with its snout and its short, sharp teeth.

"Hey!"

This time he punctuated his message with a burst of machinegun fire, pelting the ground before the Interlocutor just short of the creature's face. The lizard-man responded with shock, as if noticing Doc for the first time. It looked up at him and glowered with fixed, disparaging eyes. Just before Doc could ready another volley, however, the creature sucked in a breath and peeled out such an ear shattering bark that Doc was stunned a second, set back with fright. But Doc quickly righted himself, spat viciously, and opened continuous fire--disregarding the Interlocutor's safety entirely.

"_Fuck_ you!" he snapped, as his rounds ripped into the monster's hide, throwing it from the Interlocutor, rolling it off of the dock, and sending it reeling, back and over the edge, plunging it into the lake. Doc stood a moment after watching the creature sink, examining the ripples in the calm surface, looking for signs of unwanted life. He saw nothing.

"That, that got it," stuttered Tripp.

"Yeah," conceded Doc, uncertainly.

It had been _too_ easy.

Tripp was right, Doc thought. It was probably tough like the other dinosaurs had been. Like that little Mongol Hoard had been. Like the tyrannosaurus rex. He didn't like the thought of it, but it seemed likely that the thing would be back. And what was even less comfortable to think about was that, when it returned, it would probably come straight after the Interlocutor again. It never seemed interested in the humans at all. That meant that Doc would need to relocate the Interlocutor into the cove. It was the only way he could keep this mission from ending up not meaning a damn. If the Interlocutor wound up ripped to shreds by that…by that _whatever_ that was, it would certainly not look good on his unemployment application--if the colonel even let him live long enough to submit one.

He moved over to the Interlocutor and lifted its heavy main body, letting two of its four quadrupod legs drag behind him on the ground with an excruciating shriek.

"What are you doing?" asked Tripp.

"Got to get it," grunted Doc, grimacing from the weight of the devise, "secure."

"Fuck that thing," said Tripp.

"Yeah, fuck it," replied Doc, acknowledging to himself how perfectly he shared Tripp's attitude, if not his lack of foresight. Tripp wasn't considering the probable consequences of abandoning it. He wasn't seeing the big picture. Doc ignored him, and kept dragging the devise; glancing up periodically to check the lakefront. But he wasn't checking often enough.

"Doc!" whisper-shouted Tripp.

The fact of Tripp's voice suddenly going hollow signaled Doc to look toward the lake rather than make a reply. As he expected, the creature was back, climbing over the dock, shaking water from its leathery hide like a dog. It glanced up at Doc, dragging away its play-toy, and it winked coldly at him, once with each eye. Then it began to follow--moving more like a six-foot pigeon than the Godzilla it more closely resembled.

"Doc!" shouted Tripp again.

"I see it!" Doc growled.

He couldn't just drop the Interlocutor where it was. The creature would tear into its unarmed skin and shred the entirety of its irreplaceable innards. What Doc needed was protection. He needed cover fire.

"Cover me, will you?" Doc screamed, though he was already hearing Tripp's MP5 coming to bear.

Shots glanced from the creature's sides and chest, and Doc could see the thing wince with pain; but it kept coming. The shots weren't getting through. He could see from the dark red splotches that Tripp's rounds were leaving on its coat that the creature's skin was virtually impenetrable to bullets. The flesh beneath was bruising, certainly enough; but the damage being done was superficial--like what happens when you pelt someone with BBs. Tripp's efforts would not likely kill it anytime soon.

But Doc's, on the other hand….

When Doc reached the cove, he let the devise fall recklessly behind him, where it nearly ripped Tripp's needles from his arms. Not noticing or caring, however, Doc quickly brought his MP5 into partnership with Tripp's and unloaded several seconds of full-auto on the beast's face, targeting its eyes and mouth--targets too small for the shaky-handed, weak-armed Tripp. The response was immediate and gratifying--the monster paused. At that cue, Doc ceased fire, reached into the load-bearing vest, and removed a fragmentation grenade. He pulled the pin and tossed it just out and just to the side of their cove.

"Hey!" Tripp protested the instant he realized what Doc had just done.

But Doc simply ducked back from the corner, placing his body between the explosive and his injured partner.

The explosion ripped out from beside their cove, blocked by the wall. It missed them harmlessly, save for its ear-shattering noise; but it pounded the dinosaur with shrapnel. The creature, once seemingly gay and fearless, was thrown from its feet and was battered to the ground. It tripped on its now-listless, gangling, bird's legs. It closed its once-bold eyes in pain.

"Got you, fucker!" said Doc.

But his cry was premature. The thing shook itself of its stupor and climbed back to its feet.

Then, before Doc could think of a next move, it charged at him.

* * *

He never liked Screech anyway. 

Besides, it had really been Black's idea, not his own--it was just that Black didn't want to act out of his place. Black didn't want to be the one to get squawked at for reducing the pack's numbers yet again.

Both of them were perched above the Ugly Things, who were still standing on the water. They had been trying to convince Whistler and Spike that if the Ugly Things could walk on water, so could they. But the two pack-members down at the bottom edge of the next-high-ground couldn't seem to walk past the one Ugly Thing's noisy pain. Somehow, the one Ugly Thing and its one small noisy pain was forcing Whistler and Spike back from the corner between the next-high-ground and the water again and again. Stripes and Black were beginning to experience some very real anger and frustration standing above the Ugly Things--standing only a _single jump _away from tackling them themselves, and yet forced to wait and watch while they impetuously defied molestation.

That was when both Stripes and Black had noticed Screech, hopping and jabbering as usual.

Loud, unpleasant, undesirable.

That was also when they noticed how, for a moment, he was leaning very, _very_ far out from the edge of the next-high-ground upon which he stood. Screech was standing next to the other two pack members, and they were all standing above the Ugly Things--but where Screech was leaning out was more directly above their quarry's heads than either of the two others. That was when Black looked at Stripes, and Stripes' tail whipped out and around, causing a snap--

--and a _screech_--

And an entertaining spectacle to behold--for all of the split-second it lasted.

* * *

Spaulding and his men had been searching the bank of the reservoir, checking by ambient light and flashlight for any signs of a means of exit. There had always been the idea of trying to scale the deluge they had entered through, trying to hold their breath long enough to drag themselves back up to the daylight air they should never have been so unlucky as to have been yanked from in the first place; but such a thought was as unrealistic as hoping for air evac--they could no more force their way through that downpour than fly their chopper through the caves. They needed to find some other means. Certainly there had to be tunnels or trap doors or simply gaps in the architecture. The place had clearly been at least partially man-made. Surely the builders had a way of getting out. 

But then he thought about the classes he had taken in Anthropology during his decades-ago college years. He didn't remember the words of the textbook, but he remembered only too vividly the page featuring the photograph of the desiccated people the archeologists had found beneath the pyramids of Egypt. Some were entombed royalty, but others were simply servants and workers. Had they really been willingly sacrificed? Or had they simply not quite finished their work? The chilling thought intensified his earnest, and put a briskness to his pace while he looked over the corner of the shore that he had assigned himself to search. He couldn't express his gratitude when he heard the optimism in Ross' voice from farther along the bend:

"Hey colonel!" Ross called. "Found something!"

The three others quickly converged on Ross, finding him standing in what was clearly a trough of some sort, leading from a ten-foot-square metal grate built into the reservoir wall. From beyond that grate there came the strangest light the soldiers had ever seen. It was as though the walls themselves were glowing, shining as though polished; perfectly white. But they couldn't see any light source; and the tunnel beyond extended only a few meters before bending sharply upward and out of sight.

"What the fuck?" muttered Sydwinsky.

But the colonel was direct.

"Who cares," he said. "Can you open it?"

"No hinge," said Ross.

"The man didn't ask if it had a hinge," said the captain. Clearly, his nerves, like all of the others', were beginning to fray. "He asked if you could open it."

"Stryber had all of the demolitions," said Sydwinsky, moving toward the grate's edge, "but maybe there's something we can do with grenades or mines."

The colonel was watching the two lower ranking officers examining the grate's edges and developing a strategy when his radio chirped for attention.

"Spaulding, go," he said.

"_Colonel?_" replied a familiar voice.

"That's who you called," Spaulding said.

"_I called every-damn-body,_" the voice moaned. Spaulding could hear rapid-fire gunshots chopping the air around the speaker's head.

"Doc?" asked Spaulding, "what the hell's going on?"

"_I don't know sir,_" Doc's frightened voice said. "_It's about as tall as us, big-ass mouth, mean as a fucking snake--!_"

"Wait one!" snapped the colonel, putting Doc on hold and switching quickly to Wallis' frequency.

"_Wallis,_" said the lieutenant.

"Are you monitoring your--?"

"_Yes, sir!_"

"Then what the fuck are you--?"

"_Sir, we've got her cornered right now, sir, and she's_--"

"Croft?" the colonel asked.

"_Yes, sir,_" Wallis explained. "_But_--"

"Reel her in already, and get down to Doc and my goddamned Interlocutor before--!"

"_Yes, sir; but_--!"

"But _what_?"

There was a long pause.

"But _what_, Lieutenant?" the colonel again demanded.

The lieutenant's reply was brief.

"_Never mind, sir,_" he said. "_Withdrawing to Doc's position._"

"What?" stammered the colonel, shocked and dismayed. "What the hell just happened?"

The lieutenant explained while running.

* * *

Rainy didn't know where the other shots were coming from, and he didn't care. He only knew that Lara's shots from her two six-guns would never have been enough to keep back the raptors. They could never have inflicted enough pain, and could never have killed them. Even while Lara blasted and blasted, her experience slowly educating her, Rainy could sense the question burning in her mind: _What does it take to kill these sons of bitches?_ And, of course, he knew the answer to that, as well, even if he dared not say it even to himself: _Poor Lara: you can't_. 

There was nowhere to go. All around was a swelling maelstrom of hungry waters, eager to suck down anything that was hapless enough to make the mistake of falling into it. Their ledge was blocked in one direction by a two-hundred foot wall; and, in the other, by a pair of velociraptors--the most dangerous, violent, and indestructible things he had ever the displeasure of encountering. Rainy blessed the firers, wherever they were--despite the fact that he knew their eventual success would probably only mean his becoming their next target.

And despite the fact that their efforts deserved only a fraction of his gratitude.

The anonymous fire only slowed them. The more important obstacle was their own feet. They were too large for the tiny ledge. They needed some other support. That support potentially existed in the crevices between the mortared stones of the wall. It was an advantage that Lara had wasted no time learning to exploit. While the raining bullets gave her time by keeping the raptors slow and off balance, Lara worked systematically, targeting and obliterating their handholds even before they could acquire them. She was clearly hoping to lure them far enough out to drop them into the water when their handholds vanished, but they hadn't been eager enough under the merciless gunfire to fall into her trap. It was a stand-off

For a time.

A while before, while searching for the faces of their benefactors above, Rainy had noted the presence of the other raptors twenty or more feet above their heads, leaning over the edge, gloating over them as though they were exhibits in a cage. Lara had already fired at them a few times, worried that one might try to climb down the wall if it weren't discouraged--but more recently she had given up the practice, apparently convinced that they weren't as suicidal as she had imagined.

But Lara should have imagined more carefully.

When Rainy looked up this time, he could see the faces of the black raptor and the brown-striped one--the two worst--gazing at them menacingly. That was normal. But in between them was that littler scrawny one, and it was jutting its head and chest out much, much farther. It reminded Rainy of a puppy-dog excited about its first ride in the family truck. Rainy had seen its face up there before, but he didn't at all expect it when its eyes suddenly lit up like a firecracker had gone off in its butt.

"Lara!"

But it was too late; and the little raptor tackled Lara into the water in a blazing pass; its feet somehow gripping the stone--allowing it, literally, to _run _down the wall.

* * *

"Yes, sir; but--!" said Wallis, firing his weapon, and then suddenly stopping. 

"What the--?" gasped Cavanaugh, also ceasing fire.

Lara Croft had just vanished in flash of falling reddish-brown.

"Never mind, sir," Wallis said. "Withdrawing to Doc's position."

Cavanaugh realized what Wallis was ordering, even if Kini didn't. Kini was still firing down at the raptors, even though their primary target for capture, Lara Croft, had already been eliminated: Eliminated, certainly, from their targeting sights; and quite probably from their miserable lives altogether. But Kini was ignoring Wallis' wails.

"Let's go!" Wallis shouted. "Kini!"

Cavanaugh, however, was both less resistant to Wallis' pretenses at leadership, and more sensitive to his brutal logic. He stopped firing, but he turned on him and protested: "What are you doing?"

"She's gone!" Wallis replied, trying to leave.

"The boy's still down there!" Cavanaugh said, stopping him by his shoulder. "He could still be useful."

"Useful," echoed Kini.

"But he's not the priority," Wallis explained, already moving. "Now, let's go!"

Cavanaugh spared one last glance down toward Rainy Hedgebrook, alone on the ledge. He could see the two raptors he and the others had been staving off beginning to inch their way onto the ledge after him--now completely unopposed.

"Damnit," murmured Cavanaugh, finishing his glance, "sorry, buddy."

And he--reluctantly at first but then full-heartedly--dashed down to the dock.

* * *

It was a good thing that she didn't have to be under water for long--the thing had struck her so suddenly she hadn't had time to suck in a breath. 

Lara went down too quickly to think, and she might have panicked if her body had suddenly begun to ache for oxygen. As it was, she had only just to realized she couldn't breathe when her head exploded unexpectedly from the water, and she found herself gulping down her precarious new location's dark wet air in a wheeze.

Her other lucky reflexes had been automatic as well. Somehow, even while holding her breath and swirling through the cold water, she had both holstered her pistols and had defended herself from the creature in her arms. Even though she hadn't the least conscious memory of her actions, the instant she emerged above the hellish abyss, she could immediately appreciate the power of her own fully-internalized martial conditioning. Somehow, she had turned the creature's belly away from her and had grasped its narrow ankles. Not only could it no longer strike at her, it had actually providing her a hand-hold: Its sharp claws reflexively clasped the rocks in front of its face, securing her and it both to the tunnel wall with a hold that would have been impossible for Lara's own comparatively fragile fingertips.

The raptor's body snapped taut like a rope, and Lara, for once, was grateful for the beast's having a bodily strength and toughness inordinate to its smallish size. She glanced down her legs and saw the long, long fall that awaited them both if its mighty little claws were to fail. The water spilling over her was falling into someplace white and feverishly intense, emitting an energy that sent restless shivers through both of their hanging bodies.

That place below was clearly the origin of the mist she had seen rising from the pyramid like a chimney; the place the great tyrannosaurus rex had come to a not-so-peaceful rest. She wasn't eager to follow it to its violent grave. But the only thing between her and certain doom was the self-preservation instincts of a primitive brain, and a (gratefully) splendidly powerful set of dinosaur claws. The animal was strong, but she could tell that its body weight and her own sudden yank upon its hindquarters were causing its scrawny frame to distend. She could hear it gasping out in pain, kicking its dangling feet and twitching its dangling tail uselessly in an attempt to free itself from her. She could see its dug-in claws budging free of their holds, bit by bit. Above the animal, she could see the rocks to which it clinged. Beyond them, she could also see dark shadow that bespoke a hole of some kind. An alcove, possibly.

Lara acted quickly.

Seeing the raptor's claws slipping, she caught its tail between her boots, pressed it hard like a climbing rope, reached up once--and then twice--climbing its thighs, and then its back, and then its neck. Finally, she launched herself off, stomping the base of its neck. Quite accidentally, her force dislodged the creature's claws and it fell; just as she entered the little alcove above them. Suddenly, the raptor was spilling with the rest of the water, its pathetic little eyes wide and terrified; its emasculated screech swiftly fading.

* * *

It wouldn't take long for them to realize that the gunfire had ended. It wouldn't take them long to see that they could now grasp a hold of the wall above their heads and walk out onto the ledge safely. And Rainy knew that once they did figure it out, he was as good as drowned or ripped to shreds. 

Somehow, there seemed a certain appropriateness to his end, though. The soldiers had been firing from somewhere, defending him from the raptors, saving him for themselves. But he had allowed himself to be fooled for a moment into believing in them; trusting in their hearts and their motivations. Allowing himself to believe in their power and volition to rescue him. Just as he had allowed himself to be fooled into believing that Lara Croft would save him. It was another example of the gods playing fool's bait with his heart, taunting him with good evidence for faith and then later viciously undermining it once his faith took root. Rainy had thought he had heard the gods sadistic laughter in the rippling surges beside him when he had stood there and watched Lara being taken away. He had heard it again when the bullets stopped coming. And he was hearing it even then, while the raptors began to march onto his ledge after him.

He backed away from the monsters, but he had already decided his own fate. If it was to be a choice between shredding and drowning, he would take the later. Lara had gone that way, and it always seemed like she knew best about these things. He just had to keep the whistling-faced demon and its pointy-faced partner away from his precious body long enough to build up the serenity to deliberately step away from the ledge. Unfortunately, it appeared that the cruel gods were being even less charitable than usual. Long before his heart had been allowed sufficient time to prepare itself to leave this world, his body reached the end of the ledge--the two-hundred foot wall. He was suddenly cornered; and his heart, instead of tranquilizing and pacifying, wrenched into fresh terror, and he was utterly petrified upon his ledge, unable to choose even his own way of death. The monsters came, and he closed his eyes--

Just in time to miss the first, and then the second, raptor dropping harmlessly into the drink.

His eyes opened at the double-splash--just in time to be surprised by the heavy end of rope that fell across his shoulder.

* * *

The lizard-man had Tripp's booted foot in its mouth, and was dragging him, screaming, from the cove when the others arrived. His body was dragging its two I.V. bags as the monster walked backward, taking everything Doc's machinegun could throw at it without even a grimace. 

Cavanaugh dashed into the open chamber, searching for the action. He nearly ran through Doc's gunfire. When he turned his head, finally, in the correct direction, he saw and ran straight at the unknown creature, stomp-kicking it solidly in the ribs. The creature's chest seemed to have all of the elasticity of a car radiator: Its ribs hardly bent, and they certainly didn't break . He hadn't even injured it. He'd only _distracted _it.

The slumped down beast released Tripp's boot and focused upward at the now-hesitant, backing away, quickly-sobered Cavanaugh. Its eyes were like chiseled jade, sparkling in the sunlight that scattered from the pitted surface of the rocky white walls, flashing sharply from their angled facets. When the thing glared up at him, it was like the face of the devil--knowing, thinking, feeling, _seething_. A terror gripped Cavanaugh that put his every other instinct on hold, and he forgot all about the MP5 machinegun held limply in his right hand. He backed away; and it wasn't until the creature sucked in a deep breath and then barked it out at him that he could find the wits to move. As the bark made him flinch, its tail came like a bullwhip, swinging at his head. It was invisible but for the blur of its motion.

Cavanaugh somehow recovered his reflexes enough to drop, and the tail ripped the air where his fragile head and neck would have been. He fell to his butt; and the sound of metal-striking-stone finally reminding him of his not being completely helpless before the face of this demon. At the same time as he swung his MP5 forward, he could see Wallis flanking it along the cubby-potched wall. Both soldier's shots struck the creature's head at once, battering it instantly back, away from Tripp and Cavanaugh, and knocking it toward the water.

Doc quickly joined the barrage, even while the creature ducked its head determinedly and shook off its confusion. Doc's bullets preempted another lunge--a lunge which would have given it Cavanaugh, who was foolishly walking after the thing and standing too close. But when the three shooters combined their efforts, the creature couldn't lunge or duck or dodge or run. They finally began to bend the incredibly tough creature to their collective will. It thrashed and shook, whipping its tail, lashing at the air with its claws; but the three machineguns were simply too much for it, and it suddenly began to spasm violently in pain, its skin splintering into gory wounds.

Thinking they were doing well, Cavanaugh closed in again for a closer aim. He almost didn't hear the jumping-scraping, jumping-scraping sounds racing down at him from behind.

But Tripp did: "Cavanaugh, look out!"

Cavanaugh span, but this time it was too late to dodge.

* * *

Perched, kneeling on her little abyss' edge alcove, Lara could hear the song of the vortex more clearly. She could hear it in a way that had been impossible from the stuppa-top. The sound was stronger and less diffused. Upon the stuppa-top, Lara had watched the white mist rise and had contemplated the awesome powers the vortex had somehow unleashed upon the cavern biosphere, but she had not actually heard the song. It had always been there, though; cooing. The song was the deceptively simple sound of the natural reverberations of the water falling through the cavern; but, somehow, it seemed _embellished_ in some peculiarly alluring way. She couldn't put her finger on it, but listening to the water placed her in a serene state of mind that seemed wholly incompatible with the situation which she still intellectually recalled herself having been purposed to confront. _The water, follow the water_, the song seemed to say; echoing Bean's faith-filled words--words she once had thought were mere eccentricity, but which she now felt must have been pure prescience. 

She was ready to obey the command. At that moment, she was ready to _descend_.

But then she remembered Rainy.

Had he survived? The only way he could be alive is if the men in black had rescued him--there was no way off of that ledge, and those velociraptors (yes, raptors; she was almost certain that they were raptors) would never have allowed him to escape. But still, he hadn't followed her into the shaft; and she was quite certain that he would have put up at least that much of a fight. As impossible as it seemed, he was quite likely still alive; and, if so, he had almost certainly been captured.

Lara had to admit it: She had been waiting above the vortex as much to hear the song as wait for Rainy. Before now, before it had come time for her to leave, she hadn't realized how tempted she had been to simply stay. But Rainy was far more important than the song of this vortex. Bean's prophesies not-withstanding, her mission was not exploration, but escape. Her Idol may have been gone, but that boy was Bean's only hope for vindication; and the men in black would only keep him safe and alive for so long. She would have to get back to the vortex later.

For now, she needed a way out.

The most immediate possibility was the tall, tall jagged shaft above her, spiring into what seemed like the very sky above her head. The mist grew denser and whiter as it ascended, making the walls above head her indistinct and mystifying; making the open maw of the far-away alter-hole glitter with shapeless rainbow colors. She could climb that way, but it would be a long climb, and the surfaces were slick. It would not have been a challenge that she couldn't have handled--and it certainly wouldn't have been any more needlessly dangerous than her preferred course of climbing _down_ the same glistening walls--but there was also a crawlway leading away from her alcove behind her, and that place held the added attraction of the sounds of familiar voices.

The cavern caused the voices to echo and interfere incomprehensibly, but the fact there were voices in this cave at all told her something that was just as important--or perhaps even more important--than what their actual words probably could have. Since there had been no more than three firers defending her from the raptors, and there had only been six soldiers total, their team had been _divided_. Their numerical superiority had been crippled by at least half. At most, there were three soldiers in the caves with her. And Lara could handle three.

It was time to make the bastards work for her for once.

* * *

It was clear that these new soldiers had no idea what they were up against--_yet_. 

Rainy had been dragged into a large open chamber where a missing wall faced out to the tranquil western waters. Before him, Wallis and Doc were stumbling aimlessly, trying to fire their machineguns in two, three, places at once. They were surrounded by the big, black raptor and the barking one, who were alternately charging and circling, charging and circling, keeping them off-balance.

As Rainy arrived, Cavanaugh had been tossed backward against the adobe-like stone-age storage compartments along the wall, and was trying to shake off his haze. The striped raptor was lunging at him. Tripp, meanwhile was on the ground, trying to drag himself onto a cluttered platform between the two walls' worth of adobe compartments. He was firing his machinegun at any animal that gave him a clear line of sight.

Rainy couldn't believe he was back in the middle of this mayhem again.

After Kini had pulled him up from the ledge, he hadn't said a word to the boy. He had simply marched him through the ruined city and down a ramp into the pyramid's insides, where he finally dragged him, all but kicking and screaming, into the heart of this new battle against the raptors. All he could think of was escape. He struggled feverishly against the giant native's grasp, feeling his dark fingers like iron handcuffs clasped about his tender young wrist. He put up so fierce a resistance that he feared he might break off his arm entirely, the way lizards drop their tails.

And yet, once Kini had tossed him into a corner, releasing him, Rainy found that he had lost the motivation to run. He was watching the horror unfolding around him, and was thinking about losing Lara to the whirlpool, and he was thinking about all of those dinosaurs all around him.

But what really dampened his motivation was the view of the water beyond the huge chamber's missing wall. All that water. It would be a long way to shore without a boat. And even if he could swim it, what would be there to greet him but more of the very same monsters he already had all around him? He could hide among the ruins of the pyramid-top, but for only so long. Eventually, either the creatures or the soldiers would find him again.

The on-going battle could only end in one of two ways: Either the raptors died, or the soldiers died. Either way, there would likely be a death-sentence on the other end for Rainy Hedgebrook. But there was one difference: There was always the possibility that he might convince the soldiers to spare him. He wasn't likely to be offered such an opportunity by the raptors. And besides, without the assistance of _someone's_ soldiers, virtually no one would have been able to escape this cavern alive--certainly not a twelve-year-old computer programmer. So, when Kini dropped Rainy's wrist and dashed off to Cavanaugh's aid, Rainy crouched in the corner where he had been placed, and he stayed put.

Like in the caves before the biosphere, Lara could see in here. She still couldn't determine where the light was coming from; but, while she had been still in the mouth of her crawlway, high on the wall, she had noted that the light sparkled across the water surface as though it were like the light of the sun upon a lake at noon--if not nearly so bright. To sparkle the way it did implied an omnipresence to the light that she couldn't begin to explain. But she hadn't dwelled on the enigma--it wasn't important. The light was more than adequate to see, and she hadn't come to conduct an investigation. She had come to perform a reconnaissance.

She found them somewhat how she had expected to find them--although there were four rather than three. All of them were busy at the bank of the reservoir, working on something in the wall. An exit, Lara presumed. She figured that they must have been trying to figure a way to open it. She had to move quickly. Their work offered her a grand opportunity: It meant that none of them would be looking her way. But between their work site and her hiding place in the wall, the shore was too narrow to use. Even if she were perfectly silent, one of them might look her way by random chance.

Instead of walking, she swam.

Sliding into the dark pool, Lara let only her eyes rise above the surface; like a crocodile--or perhaps like the tyrannosaur--stalking its prey. The closer she loomed, the better she could understand their words. But by the time she realized they were talking about explosives, she was already on the shore, pistols out, walking silently up the trough behind them.

"Hey!" she shouted, interrupting them, jarring their nerves.

Two tried to turn around, and she shot the metal grate before their faces, _twice_.

"Don't move!" she said.

"Hey! Hey!" shouted the tallest one, his hands suddenly raised, his voice falling to an urgent whisper: "Come on, now! Come on! Watch the bullets, lady! Careful!"

"I said don't move!"

The other three men, leaving their weapons hanging, also slowly raised their hands--still facing the bars.

"So," said the steel-gray haired one, the leader. "After all of this, you come to _us_?"

"Consider it a courtesy call," Lara replied.

"Well then," Steel-Gray asked. "What do you want, Lady Croft?"

"Rainy Hedgebrook."

"I thought he was with you."

"Not anymore," Lara said. "I want you to find me for me. Deliver him to me, or I'll kill the four of you."

"Kind of hard to go searching for lost children with our faces buried in steel bars, Lara."

"You have people up there who hopefully care about what happens to you," Lara said.

"Maybe," Gray-Hair said, boldly testing her resolve by slowly turning around. "But what makes you think that I'm--"

He stopped, and his beguiling, rascal's expression instantly dissolved.

"What?" demanded Lara, no longer feeling quite as secure behind her guns as she had been a moment before.

He was staring at her with far greater terror than her meek form warranted. Even Lara realized that her terror tactics would only have worked so well and for so long--she was still a debutante, and they were still professional soldiers. The man's icy gaze only made sense when she realized that the other soldiers had also turned and were also staring. Staring_ past_ her.

Lara span.

* * *

Rainy had retreated into the cove with Tripp. He simply ran past the shooting invalid, not expecting him to stop firing for his sake, nor being angered when his expectations were fulfilled. He nestled himself in the far back corner of the niche, trying to hide behind the over-turned Interlocutor. He watched Tripp fire, and the others losing their fights. 

Things had not been going well for the soldiers. The raptors had scattered them, sending them screaming. They were nursing bitten arms or legs and were bleeding profusely from assorted wounds all over their bodies. None were dead yet, but their time was running out. Rainy had pressed himself into the corner and was waiting for the end to come.

But then Kini took charge. Kini _snapped_.

With Cavanaugh doubled over against the compartments, and the raptor snapping at his face, Kini was attempting to drive the creature away with full-auto fire. But all Kini's machinegun seemed able to accomplish was to push the vicious animal into a quick orbit around Cavanaugh's body, putting the slumping soldier between the shooter and his target. Frustrated after the second occurrence of the tactic, Kini lost his patience and his sense of caution. He charged the raptor in a single aggressive bound and placed the barrel of his MP5 directly against the creature's skull, opening fire and driving the monster fully back in shock and pain. While it stood its ground a few feet away and glared at him, and he glared back--seemingly unafraid--he lifted Cavanaugh's now-bloody body by the back of his uniform's collar, lifting his crumpled shape to its feet. Cavanaugh wasn't fully recovered, but he didn't need Kini to explain what he wanted him to do next. Both men aimed their machineguns at the same striped raptor, opened fire upon its face, and advanced.

Instantly, the other two raptors responded. They were still orbiting Doc and Wallis, dodging their shots and swiping at them with their tails, lunging at them for nibbles of their flesh; but, when they heard the striped one's painful squeal, they abandoned the other men and launched themselves at Kini and Cavanaugh. But even as the two raptors ran, the two heroic firers kept their focus on the striped one; and, in a second, the striped raptor had been driven fully back and fully off from the dock, into the water. Seeing that victory, Doc and Wallis applied the lesson; turning their weapons on the black raptor, focusing on him while Kini and Cavanaugh sharply switched fire to the barker, cutting off its attack only a foot before it could reach them.

But the barker was less willing to be intimidated than its striped cohort had been. Its tail flew and sliced the air where its attackers' heads had been only an instant before. It rushed forward, and would not retreat more than just slightly; as though it were a human being, fighting desperately to convince itself that its pain only existed in its mind. Amazingly, as the two soldiers discovered--being pressed gradually backward by its lunges and lashes--its self-psyching tactics were _working_.

But things were going still worse for Wallis and Doc against the black raptor. It didn't seem to care at all about bullets. It didn't seem to care about pain, nor even its own blood. They had been better off against it when they had been allowing it to circle and taunt them--at least then it wasn't _angry_. The creature had become _possessed_ with rage. Their shots seemed to have no effect on its advance whatever. It kept coming, and coming, and coming--driving them backward. The only moment they managed to win from it came when they had backed so far backward that Tripp's machinegun in the cove could join theirs, creating three separate blazing-points on the creature's head and neck. The tactic delayed it, but could hardly stop it. Before long, all five men had found themselves cornered together into the cove, desperate now to hold it, their last safe ground.

And equally desperate, it seemed, to ignore Rainy Hedgebrook.

"Gimme a knife, somebody!"

No one listened to him, but Rainy was sure he was right. Behind him, in the floor, Rainy had just spotted a small hole. It had caught his attention when his finger had accidentally slid into it while he had been pressing himself against the wall in the back of the cove. It was the oddity of it that had struck him. There were no other holes in the stone anywhere else in the room so complete or so sharply defined as this one. Clearly, it had been deliberately engineered by whomever had constructed the cove. He had let his fingers linger curiously in the hole--which was more of a rectangular slot than a hole--and he had felt something amazing: Ridges. In the slot, his finger had run across tiny metal objects that felt distinctly manufactured; tiny spines protruding into the slot from its sides and bottom--not fixed; but flexible and sensitive. And then, for the first time, he realized the how the stone of the walls around the cove and that of its floor didn't seem to be of quite the same material. In fact, the floor had been shaped and chisled to fit there--it was a completely separate slab!

A platform!

"Come on, give me a knife!"

He was certain it was a trap door. He didn't know where it led, of course; but when the striped raptor climbed back out from the water, and all three marauders joined together into yet another charge, it just didn't seem to matter. Anywhere else in the universe was preferable to being trapped in the corner of that chamber! Rainy had tried to use his Swiss army knife, but its blades were too short to reach the spines. He could touch them with his bare hands, but his fingers were too fat to manipulate the spines. He desperately needed a good long knife. A combat knife. But looking back at the soldiers showed him that they were all about to be too busy to hear his petition.

The black raptor ripped through the wall of gunfire opposing it, and it landed well in the cove, opening its mouth and thrusting it down over Wallis' cringing shape. Wallis screamed and raised his hands, but it took Kini to save him. He rose up while the creature attempted to jump past, tackling it in its midsection and throwing it back. But the creature wouldn't go: It had pressed its tail against the ground to out-leverage Kini's shove. It tried to take a bite out of his collar. Kini's hands went up and he cupped the monsters' chin, pushing its head backward, hyperextending its neck. He twisted the creatures' head; and, when its neck refused to go along, its entire body rolled sideways by Kini's almost inhuman strength. Once he had the monster cocked sideways and off of its leverage points, Kini then shoved it away with so much force that he threw not only the raptor forward, but himself _backward_. The big man impacted the rear wall of the cove, sliding down next to Rainy--seeming as stunned by his display of strength as the others who had had time to see it.

And there was no one who had had time to see it all.

At the same instant, the striped raptor and the barking raptor had arrived.

Wallis and Doc were trying to aim and fire, but the sudden in-rush of all three into their tiny little space had them unbalanced and horrified. Wallis tried to aim at the striped one, while most of Doc's shots hit the barker; but, when the black one had leaped against Kini, everyone panicked a moment--and the barker suddenly got into tail range. Everyone dodged but Tripp: It struck his weapon and smashed it against the wall, bending its barrel and rendering it useless. At the same time, the black monster rose up on the balls of its feet to glare down over Doc from only a foot away. It roared like a tiger, and pounced.

Doc had only an instant to fall away, and might not have made it were it not for his own panic. He lost balance and tripped backwards over the Interlocutor. Wallis, meanwhile, swung his weapon at the monster, but it was already in position for another attack.

Its partners were swiftly at its sides.

But that was when everything changed.

Rainy had been begging for a knife, but just as he been hoping to steal the one hanging from Kini's belt, it occurred to him what shape his lock-picking tool would need to have in order to touch every trigger-tine, and he then saw that Kini had an object on his body that met that description almost precisely--and it wasn't his knife. The amulet hanging around the native's neck was exactly the correct shape. Before giving himself the time to come to his senses, and before allowing the native to jump back into action, Rainy snatched the amulet, broke the string, and crammed it into the slot in the floor--pounding it down hard.

And then the room _rocked_.

* * *

Behind her, there were raptors. 

Three of them.

They were climbing from the water--possibly having followed her all the way from the other bank. Unbelievably, one was the whistler who had tormented her on the ledge; and the other was probably its pointy-nosed comrade it had had waiting on the steps behind it. They were there. How they gotten there was a mystery her mind had neither the stamina nor the time to address. All she knew was that she had an armed enemy in front of her--one that at the moment she wasn't even watching--and a wild one behind, who didn't give a damn if it were being watched or not.

Panicking, preparing to dodge, jump, or charge out of the way of their bullets, Lara turned violently back upon the men in black--but found them already retreating themselves, dashing to the sides of the big metal grate they had been working on when she had found them. The raptors were right behind her, and it was then that she suddenly recalled their last words--_something about explosives?_

"Oh, shit!"

Lara turned and leaped straight through the middle of the raptors, diving into the reservoir--diving, diving, diving--as deeply as she could.

* * *

Rainy thought he would unlock a trap door. He had thought that the false floor could be pushed to a side and opened. He had no idea what it meant when the entire chamber around them exploded into its incredible rumble. Everyone froze for an instant as it began, including the equally puzzled raptors. No one realized what was happening. 

But, suddenly, the huge stone slab upon which Rainy and the soldiers were haphazardly sprawled began to grind, stone against stone, dragging against its side and back walls. It began to _lift _from its shallow platform outline, picking up speed, rising smoothly but unbelievably swiftly into the air.

"What the fuck?" gasped Tripp, still firing at the monsters, who, as the platform passed their toothy heads, had finally begun to react at being left behind.

"What did you do?" demanded Wallis, having heard Rainy's doing _something_ in the back corner.

"Well, I-?" protested Rainy, at once overwhelmed both by his achievement and the terrible realization that Wallis was pointing a machinegun at him for it. As it was, the barking raptor sorted out both the soldier's and boy's confusion for them.

Rainy said, "Look out!"

Wallis span, and saw the barking raptor's face and claws perched on the edge of their rising platform, its ugly nose sticking farther and farther over the top while his fingers wiggled and flexed for better grip. Wallis' had his machinegun on it in a second, but it had already wrapped one of those clawed hands around Tripp's foot, using him to pull itself up. Its head and elbows were on the platform before anyone could react.

Doc leaped over Tripp and stomped its hands with his boot-heels while Cavanaugh, blood freshly wiped from his face, thrust his MP5 barrel directly to the climbing monster's head and fired point-blank into its nostrils. Wallis, too, joined the barrage; but by then it had all the leverage it needed to pull itself the rest of the way up.

It lunged forward as far as its shoulders and upper back, and then it stopped.

They had come to the top. The platform was sized to mesh tightly into the cut-away space above their heads--a hole precisely shaped for it. It did not have any additional space to accommodate the body of a raptor, half-on and half-off the edge. The corner bit into the creature, and it panicked as it began to feel itself being squeezed. It attempted to push itself back, to let gravity pull it out of the scissor-hold, but it was too late. It only managed to pull itself back as far as its neck before the force of the rising lift began to clamp down. It then exploded into such horrific squeals of agony then that even the hardest of them were moved to pity. They watched while its head was mercilessly severed from its hanging body in an explosion of blood and anguish.

* * *

When the explosives ignited, they had at first seemed to have had precisely the effect the colonel was hoping for--the raptors had scattered, Lara Croft had disappeared. But as he and the others ran back to the grate, they realized that the original intention behind their use of explosives had failed utterly. The grate remained in place.

It made the colonel irritable. Annoyed. Ross carefully examined the corners where the explosives had been placed, but he found no sign of damage. It was possible that the devises hadn't been placed properly--after all, they had been grenades and claymore mines, not plastique--but the sheer lack of visible damage made it seem as though the volcanic rock supporting the grate were actually high-grade steel. They were still trapped in the reservoir. They could attempt to blow the grate again, the colonel supposed; but it angered him and tasked his already worn patience to think that they'd have to. His ears hurt enough from the first blast.

But that was when he realized it.

His ears weren't ringing just from the blast--something else was rumbling.

Suddenly he knew what it was, and where it was coming from--but no human reflexes in the world could have moved him or any of his team out of the way in time.

* * *

Lara went down and kept going down.

Inexplicably, there was still light beneath the surface of the water, and she could see enough to know that she was heading toward an underground passage of some kind, closed with a huge barred grate. It was centered at the bottom of the reservoir, and it emitted an even stronger white light than the other grate at the surface.

While examining this underwater grate and the curiously illuminated shaft behind it, she heard the seemingly distant surface explosion she had been expecting, and realized it was safe to return. She was wondering how she was going to out-maneuver the men in black this time, now that they knew she was coming. She was trying to decide where in the reservoir she should ascend when she glanced up and saw--

The raptor with the big eyes. It was coming down, swimming like a tadpole, its baggy eyelids gorged with reservoir water. Lara span to swim farther down, trying to put distance between herself and it and its friends, which she felt safe in presuming were not far behind it.

It was time to find out how well her guns worked underwater.

As it approached, she twisted in the water and fired--and her body was immediately enveloped in a dizzying, swarming, tickling cloud of bubbles. For a moment she was blinded; and she nearly panicked--clumsily attempting to evade an attack she couldn't even be sure was coming. She swung her weapons through the dazzling spectacle around her, preparing to place the barrels directly to the skin of any attacker that materialized--knowing that since her Thunderers had every bit of their familiar recoil, they would still, at least, be potent at point-blank-range. In any case, though, she didn't have any intention of allowing them to get that close. When nothing immediately bit into her body, she holstered the weapons and swam--rapidly, feverishly, for the surface.

When she looked up, she learned two important things. The first was that the men in black were also in the water. Something--maybe a massive influx of water--was blasting from the grate they had been standing near, and they were all then whirling about under a frenzied layer of refraction, foam and glaze. She was almost happy about this development until she realized the second thing: Though she kicked, stroked, and ripped at the water around her at her best competition-winning speeds, she wasn't getting any closer to the surface.

When she looked down, she saw that the huge grate beneath her was gone.

The ground had opened up.

She--along with everything else in the water--was spilling down that bright while shaft below.


	20. Chapter Nineteen: The Underworks

"_Lying awake at night _

_I wipe the sweat from my brow_

_But it's not the fear_

'_Cause I'd rather go now_

_Trying to visualize _

_The horrors that will lay ahead_

_The desert sand mound_

_A burial ground_

_When it comes to the time, are we partners in crime?_

_When it come to the time, we'll be ready to die_

_God let us go now and finish what's to be done_

_Thy kingdom come_

_Thy shall be done_

_On earth_

"_Trying to justify to ourselves _

_The reasons to go_

_Should we live and let live?_

_Forget or forgive?_

"_But how can we let them go on this way?_

_The reign of terror corruption must end_

_And we know deep down_

_There're no other way_

_No trust_

_No reasoning_

_No more to say_

"_Afraid to shoot strangers..._"

**--Iron Maiden.**

**INSTRUMENTAL: "_Conan The Barbarian_." (Entire Album) **

**--Basil Poledouris **

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack _Conan The Barbarian_)

**INSTRUMENTAL: "_Progeny_""_Barbarian Hoard_." **

**--Hans Zimmer/Lisa Gerrard/Klaus Badelt **

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack _Gladiator_)

**CHAPTER NINETEEN:** **"**The Underworks.**"**

Spike was a pragmatic thinker.

In Spike's mind, there were certain ways to go about doing things, and any number of other ways not to. When he had gone down from the fast-water into the sticky-water and then had rode in through the sucking-water, he could have tried to climb back out again--the way that Whistler had been attempting to do--but he had realized right away that it would not have been the better choice. Whistler was always too impulsive; too single-minded about these kinds of things. He hadn't even stopped to listen to the strange underplace winds echoing across the waters. The sounds of action. The sounds of Ugly Things. While Whistler was all but splintering his fingerclaws on the rocks trying to pull himself up against the falling water, Spike was letting himself gently float, listening to the winds. He had heard--and then had seen--that there were Ugly Things down there with them--and these were far more entertaining-looking Ugly Things than that tiny stripling they had lost when they had fallen into the fast-waters above. Yet, it had taken Eyes' sudden re-appearance to finally convince Whistler to give up his futile escape attempt.

Somehow the big-eyed weakling had made into the underplace prior to Spike and Whistler's arrival, and had himself already noticed the Ugly Things. When he had appeared behind them--his head and his snout only barely above the water--his big eyes and his whispering squawk had signaled to both Spike and Whistler to take a look behind themselves, and listen to the voices of the Ugly Things, they having even then been visible on the farther bank. Clearly, Eyes had come to Spike because he was too cowardly to approach the Ugly Things on his own. His face betrayed his pathetic gratitude for the other pack-members' arrival. Like Whistler (who had by that point come down from the wall and had joined them in the water), Eyes was (as were so many others besides Spike himself) far too dependent upon the comforts of numbers. But, as a newly formed threesome, the new pack were more than ready to continue their hunt. Although they still, of course, had required Spike's leadership to guide them into battle.

It had at first seemed like the perfect game scenario. Unlike the playing field Stripes had arranged last time, where the Ugly Things had to be signaled to the pack's presence, these Ugly Things were already facing the water, their backs to a piece of shiny wall. They seemed ready to play even before the pack had arrived. And what was more, there was an extra Ugly Thing--a very interesting-feeling Ugly Thing--who had arrived just in time to join their games, just ahead of Spike's pack.

But, unfortunately, that was when everything went wrong.

First, just as they had emerged, Eyes, the coward, lunged after the interesting-feeling Ugly Thing when it tried to escape, abandoning the pack. That extra Ugly Thing didn't even seem to be carrying any Noisy Pain at all--which was probably the entire reason Eyes found it so alluring. Eyes was a weakling to the last.

But Eyes' desertion had been only the first of Spike's mounting problems. Immediately afterward, the Ugly Things deserted the playing field themselves, lunging to the sides of the shiny wall. This hadn't seemed so dire a situation at first; since, like Whistler, Spike loved the chase almost as much as he loved to lavish in the sounds of their prey-animals' death-fight--but the desertions had only been the start. It had been then that something suddenly over-took him and somehow removed him from the shore altogether. He hadn't been able to imagine what it might have been--it had felt and sounded like Noisy Pain, except that it had been even noisier and much, much more painful. When he had been able to see again, he had found himself far out on the water--even though he couldn't recall having swum there. And then, before he could assert himself and return to the Ugly Things--who were still at shore, gathering again around the shiny wall--there had instantly appeared a fast water from absolutely nowhere.

The fast, white-colored water had exploded from the shiny-wall, blocking his view of the Ugly Things, of the wall, and then finally even of the underplace itself; leaving him blinded and choking. He had struggled to escape from the violent surf, kicking and gyrating his smooth flanks. But when it finally occurred to him that he should attempt to swim below the unbreatheable foam, it was only then that he discovered how pointless his attempts at evasion really were.

Before Spike had gone down, washing out through the bottom of the cavern, he had believed he had felt every possible emotion. But when his water-ride through the long, white tunnels suddenly, abruptly _stopped_, leaving him immobilized, springing and down, he learned a new one.

He suddenly learned terror.

* * *

The royal quarters were gleaming white, their walls and floors polished smooth and glowing with a sourceless illumination. Before them were open, spacious, rooms; each flowing into the next in a way that reminded them disquietingly of a modern luxury apartment or of the open summer wing of a modern hillside mansion. Four-foot windows in the western wall gave them a generous view of the citadel outside--though, queerly, the wall's white light seemed slightly brighter than the cavern's faux afternoon sunlight outside. The floors and walls were carved directly from the stone, and sported features and flourishes that flowed ornately from one into another. Rises and steps and platforms rendered the quarters an architectural quality which seemed incongruously stylish for its obvious antiquity. Even without furniture, it had all of the atmosphere of a luxury penthouse. Where below had seemed a place of work and toil, these quarters had all the affectations of pomp and gentility--and the transition was jarring.

Their deliverance from blood and pain and scurrying desperation into this place's quiet imperial luxury left the humans breathless and silent. The men and boy and mysterious high-technology devise that had been cramped in their cove below were now an oddly dirty spot on the floor of this otherwise spotless and spacious royal chamber. It was unexpected and astounding. No one could have imagined that their long platform ride might end at such a place.

As they arrived, the sounds of their rough breaths echoed throughout the chambers, bouncing crisply from the blank white-walls, making the room seem all the more eerie and spectacular. Shattering the centuries-old silence around them, the beleaguered humans heaved a collective sigh. It seemed that their ordeal was over for a time, and they indulged for themselves a leisurely moment to untangle their bodies from the mess of sweat, metal, and bloody flesh that they had, in their haste, allowed themselves to become.

"Oh, shit," moaned Tripp, still buried beneath the less-injured others.

"What the fuck were--was--" moaned Wallis, his hand sliding into something wet as he attempted to stand. He realized it was the blood of the decapitated dinosaur and gasped in disgust. The thing's neck had leaked enough viscid red muck to soak into the knees of his black uniform. Its dead, glazed, eyes glared at him. Its head was laying on its side, but its eyes were askance, looking directly into his face. He stood quickly, and turned away.

"Dinosaurs," said Doc, also standing, stepping over the Interlocutor and off of the platform while replying to Wallis' unfinished question. "They were fucking dinosaurs."

"No shit they were fucking dinosaurs!" snapped Wallis, wiping his bloody fingers on his pants' leg while attempting to pretend he didn't see Doc's dismissive shrug. He sighed and watched while the rest of the human mess untangled itself from the platform.

"Any idea what just happened?" asked Cavanaugh, slouching into the chamber, his right hand applying pressure to a profusely bleeding wound on his forehead while his left went fishing for first-aid dressings in his load-bearing equipment .

"My amulet!" exclaimed Kini, punctuating it with a back-handed strike against Rainy's cowering face. Kini turned toward the slot in the platform floor while Rainy slithered in the other direction. The big man yanked his jade amulet, hard, out from the slot.

"Hey, wait!" protested Wallis, realizing the role Kini's key must have played in raising the platform. He was struck with a sudden terror that it might suddenly lower again once the key was removed--with the Interlocutor still laying lopsided across its surface. Luckily, the platform stayed put; but it was clear that Kini hadn't cared either way. Wallis groaned. He figured he had better move the Interlocutor someplace safer. He commanded, "Somebody help me with this."

Doc helped him move the devise a few meters to the side of the platform.

"Are you telling me the shrimp figured that out?" asked Tripp, gathering up his I.V.s and shuffling out of the Interlocutor's path.

"Looks that way," replied Cavanaugh, turning toward the great main atrium of the royal quarters.

He moved through a three-foot depression whose bottom was clearly a small stage. The sides of the thirty-foot rectangle were its three concentric bleachers. He ascended them on the far side and regarded the windows on the eastern wall.

"Well, shit, the little bastard," Tripp continued. "What? Do I got to say 'thank you' now?"

Kini continued to coldly glower, hovering over Rainy until he had inched himself into a corner. As Doc and Wallis set the Interlocutor upright and Rainy abruptly discovered he could retreat no farther against the wall, Tripp finally noticed Rainy's plight.

"Shit, Kini," Tripp said. "Leave the little fucker alone. He--"

But Kini turned violently toward Tripp and growled, "I will _kill_ him!"

"It's _you_ who saved him," Wallis reminded him.

And the his words had an unexpected, suddenly tranquilizing effect on Kini. He sobered, and backed away from Rainy, leaving the boy shivering with fright, but otherwise unassaulted.

"Next time you touch," said the native, in an almost feral growl, "you will _wish_ I killed you."

Rainy made no reply, frozen in speechless fright. He guarded his face with his hands, waiting. He finally breathed a sigh of relief when Kini turned away to help the others explore.

"Look at this view!" Cavanaugh said, leaning through one of the eastern windows.

Wallis joined him. They could see everything easterly in the citadel, stopped only by the pyramid's barrier wall.

"We must be the highest thing in the city," Cavanaugh said.

"Then maybe we're safe here," suggested Wallis, hopefully.

"I wouldn't count on that," said Doc.

"What'll we do now?" asked Tripp.

"Don't know," said Wallis. "Maybe nothing. Hell, we lost the girl and the ILC. I don't know what the fuck we're supposed to do. The colonel said he was on his way up here the last time I talked to him, but I'm not getting anything from him now."

"Christ," muttered Tripp. "What's next?"

* * *

It was a web.

There was no doubt about it in her mind.

She knew it was a web because of the way that her vest and boot-soles had struck upon its rope-sized strands and had became epoxied there. She knew it was a web because, after the spill that had brought her to it had stopped falling, she could see its net-woven filaments extending from tunnel wall to tunnel wall beneath her, like an out-stretched, down-angled catch-blanket. She knew it was a web because of the way the tunnels below her were filled with more of the same criss-crossing web blankets; forming a tunneling, inter-networking, spiraling latticework of filaments that sprawled without end, all the way down the throat of the tunnel and its seemingly bottomless off-branches. The latticework was so dense that even the white-wall's bright light was unable to breach the shadows of its strands. It seemed amazing to her that even the _water_ had been able to trickle through. Finally, she knew it was a web because of the black, two-ton spider she could see bouncing up from below, from blanket to blanket, climbing its way up the tunnel to claim its fresh, meaty prizes--of which she herself was now one.

It was like a reckoning.

Lara was there, the raptors were there, and all four men in black were there; all snagged in the same web. The bodies of the living were hanging haphazardly among the bodies of the seemingly ancient dead: White-glazed corpses of dinosaurs and fish of different sizes and shapes--large, small, prehistoric, modern. There were even a number of birds that had obviously been luckless enough to slip into the pyramid's deadly bottom-waters. Every corpse was desiccated and shriveled, their spider-silk funeral shrouds penetrated with fang-holes the diameter of golf balls. Dried eyes were sunken in skulls that had clearly been alive when they had been sucked empty. Fleshless mouths were still open in masks of screaming agony. Passing water had weakened silk to sag from where dried white bones had cracked through brittle, lifeless skins. Even fish that would be too small for a human sports fishermen were laying about silken and ravaged.

And the eight-legged reaper was coming to gather its bounty, scattering horror and panic before itself like a spotlight across its path. Somehow, despite physics, its body and its legs were perfectly proportional to the common garden spider of the surface world's backyards and woodlands. Its narrow, spindly legs danced their ways from web-strand to web-strand with crisp precision, moving it at a lightning speed equally proportional to the powers of its common surface cousin. It moved gracefully, effortlessly; ascending and criss-crossing from web to web, making the entire network oscillate only just so much--as though it had its mass and inertia under just as tight--just as _perfect_--a control as that under which it kept the fangs it held so tightly coiled beneath its beady, ten-eyed face. Its thorax was the size of a horse's, and its shark-like mouth was wet for the taste of victims' juice.

Lara watched in frozen, speechless, terror while the slaughter began.

Helpless in its place at the bottom of their lattice blanket, the big-eyed raptor was wailing miserably; shuddering, quivering its un-stuck tail in a desperate bid to shake loose from the epoxy trapping its neck and hip. Its wide eyes became even wider as the unreal _thing_ slowed gracefully the once-frantic eight-part ballet that had been gliding it up the tunnel--from fast-forward, to pause, to slow motion. When it struck, everyone else in the web--woman, man, and dinosaur--broke in uncontrollable moans of incredulity and awestruck horror. The spider clamped two claws into the big-eyed dinosaur's quivering body--piercing resistlessly though its once seemingly-impenetrable skin--and shoved its two great white fangs deep into the beast's trembling shoulder and neck. Instantly, the raptor's body collapsed inward upon itself as though the animal had been nothing more than an inflated rubber mimicry of itself. Its shriveling skin peeled back from its already huge eyes, making them even bigger; exposing the dilated conjunctiva behind their lids. That red flesh swiftly flushed to a dead, cold gray.

The other raptors were the first to panic. As though treating their skin as only an optional part of their anatomy, they instantly ripped themselves from their epoxied places, leaving behind great hunks of their surface tissues to hang where their bodies once did. Yet, even though their bodies could only drop from where they had been freed into fresh epoxied places on lower strands, the creatures themselves seemed only less and less concerned from fixation to fixation. The raptors--practically side-by-side the entire way--dragged themselves from strand to strand until they could finally hurl their bodies from the web entirely, clasping their then blood-covered fingers around the bars of a giant twenty-foot grate that stood embedded in the wall of the tunnel. Squealing in erstwhile agony, they slithered their way through the gridholes--which were only barely large enough to pass their then sinew-lubricated flanks--and they vanished swiftly into the white-walled passage beyond.

The humans, meanwhile, were falling through a dozen stages of furious panic, desperately kicking at the webs that held them, shaking their bodies, and screaming in mindless, wordless horror. The steel-gray-headed leader lay straddled across his two strands, the one at his leg and another at his back, and he gasped soundlessly at the black, finely-haired abomination sucking the ebbing life from the pitiful creature on the far side of the web from him. The second oldest man was in a fit of uncontrollable shrieks, only a few meters away from the deadly coupling of spider and victim, kicking frantically, uselessly--knowing that he himself was the next in line. The two younger men were in equal states of shivering panic higher in the web, trying to face themselves away from the horror awaiting them below. It was as though they believed that by rolling their half-stuck bodies oppositely from their fates, they might earn, through the few precious inches they gained, another few seconds of life. Among all of the shuddering, screaming, writhing human beings, it was only Lara Croft who recalled that she was armed.

Lara had been panicking until she had witnessed the escape of the raptors. It was then that she realized that the epoxy holding her head had dried so swiftly upon contact that it had only taken the fabric of her collar and a single lock of hair. The epoxy holding her waist and back had soaked through to her skin, but its hold there was minimal, and was already flaking from flexion. Her hair was held more tightly, but there was a knife strapped to her leg that could quickly fix that problem. But more important than the potential to become free from the spider's glue were the clues the raptors had given her as to how she might escape the spider's web itself. Her own gasping panic had ebbed only after she realized that only a few of the strands across which the raptors had dragged themselves had actually ripped away clunks of their self-deemed disposable flesh.

Some of the webbing simply wasn't sticky.

Lara's guns came swiftly from their holsters, and sprayed wild, rapid-fire shots as brutally as she could trigger them. She filled the spider's toothy face with glittering sparks where the shots splashed its iron-tough exo-shell. She aimed for its eyes, its fangs, its feelers--every sensitive place. She suspected its body would be just as tough as every other creature she had encountered in the underground world thus far, so she held no illusion that she might kill it; but she could see that it was about to turn its attention from the raptor it was digesting to the human close by, and she didn't want that to happen. It was not that she was feeling particularly magnanimous, but she didn't want the spider to be preoccupied. She wanted its fiendish attentions for herself.

It responded almost more quickly than she had been psychologically prepared to handle, moving at a speed that exceeded the psychological tolerances of all of the other humans by leaps and bounds. Foregoing the last dribbles of the raptor's juice, it lunged after the source of its painful stimulation--and the men in black shrieked with pain, their bodies stretched between the web strands it pressed apart as it ascended from one to the next. Lara watched it coming and shut out the screams, the bizarre clicking of its joints, its growling respiration vents--breathing in and out, in and out. She forced her mind into an unnatural, unsustainable calm, watching it close upon her and her ever-busy pistols. She ignored the shivering and panicking of her muscles…and she _counted_.

"...three, four, five, six…" she whispered, until it reached the one she most needed to know, and her body convulsed: "Twelve!"

Instantly, her guns indulged the act she had been feverishly inhibiting them from. They redirected themselves from the spider's twisted face to the strand it was, that instant, preparing to grasp--the final stepping stone before giving it her calves. The shots instantly shredded the strand, shattering it like glass. It failed beneath the spider's claw like a rug pulled from beneath a man's stepping foot. When the spider unwarily clasped the string anyway, its unrequited hold sent it slipping over backwards, flailing its betrayed leg in the air, whipping the useless strand. Lara quickly shot out every other filament within its reach, dropping them all in perfect time to make all seven other legs over-reach themselves--toppling the spider completely upside-down. It slid back-first along its own web until it came to a stop at the bottom, just as hopelessly caught in its own epoxy as were any of its would-have-been prey.

Though helpless--it's eight legs flailing, whistling, in the air--it remained a terror.

Lara wasted no time. Her pistols dropped back into their holsters, and her knife ripped up from its sheath, separating the spiderweb's share of her hair from the part she still wanted for herself. She cut away what epoxied parts of herself she could--including portions of her own skin. She then leaned herself forward from the semi-recumbent web, hearing her remaining epoxied parts steadily tearing off. As she inched forward on her lengthening tether of searing flesh and fabric, she sheathed her knife and reached out with her hands.

She fell forward with her spine arched, pivoting down as though she were a door on hinge, anchored by the pivot-point of her epoxied boot-soles. She landed in a down-angled push-up position, grasping one of the non-sticky webs that she had earlier counted. Hanging bridged between web-strands, Lara shook her legs, breaking the epoxy from her non-porous boot-soles. Then, one leg at a time, she lifted her body into a perfect gymnast's hand-stand, fully vertical above the web, and she brought both feet down, and she stood up.

Balanced on the dry thread, she ran like a cross between a tight-rope walker and a sprinter.

She jumped from the web and followed the raptors through the grate in the wall--through and out.

* * *

The men in black were so stunned by Lara's actions that they could hardly respond. Their jaws dropped as she passed them by, running along her balance-beam--vanishing into a safety that they, at the moment, could only fantasize about. Only Spaulding could react intelligently, and that was only because one of the webs Lara had recklessly sliced with her gunshots had been supporting his legs.

When the line holding up his feet had suddenly failed, the fabric and skin where his other web had been epoxied instantly ripped away. Suddenly, he was hanging from a dangling pendulum-strand, anchored only by his pants leg and the porous leather of his boot. Upside-down, Spaulding had watched the agile girl leap through the grate to safety, leaving the rest of them behind to die.

The spider was on its back in the web, only a few feet from his good friend, John Bailey, who was cringing in a desperate effort to remain out of the reach of the four monstrous clawed legs flailing in the air, only inches from his face. The spider's articulation limited what its joints could reach, but Spaulding could see that it was stretching itself, arching its abdomen and thorax, trying to reach the web behind it. The way it was progressing, he knew that his team had maybe as long as a minute before it would fully recover.

His first thought was to follow the example of his adversary and to sever the remaining strands supporting the behemoth spider, which would hopefully cause it to fall more fully away into the deeper depths of the tunnel-web system. With luck, such a move would have made it more permanently stuck farther away. Unfortunately, the webs supporting the spider's jiggling body were also those supporting Bailey. There had to be another option.

He found one.

He looked up and realized how close he was to the wall. His string dangled him too far below the grate to have had any hope of reaching it himself, but Ross' anchors were located higher in the web than his own were. He measured the distances with his eyes, gauged, and then concluded that it could be done. He had no other choice but to try.

"It's going to be on you, Ross," Spaulding said, seeing how sound of his name took the mindlessly terrified man completely by surprise.

Spaulding brought his MP5 up and aimed as best he could--given the gravity-exacerbated blood-pressure thrashing through his skull. His shots severed the webs suspending the other soldier, just past where he was epoxied. Spaulding's aim hadn't been quite as flawless as Lara Croft's had been, but the effect was adequate.

"What the--!" shrieked Ross. "Hey--Hey!"

When the line beneath him snapped, his hapless body swung downward at an awkward angle, held not neatly by his feet or legs, but rather by a painful-looking swath of his chest and abdomen. As he fell to the grated wall, Spaulding could hear fabric and possibly flesh jerking--ripping--and he could hear the younger man screaming in agony. When he struck the grate, it was not duty nor even intelligence that seemed to be driving him hand-over-hand up the bars, but pure pain reflex.

"Goddamnit!" cried Ross, finally relieved, clinging to the bars.

"Sorry, son!" said Spaulding, tripping on his words in fear. "We've got to move quick. What--do you got the rope?"

"Negative," uttered Ross, picking at the web segment with his knife. "Sydwinsky's--"

But Spaulding didn't let him finish:

"Syd!" the colonel said. "You're next!"

"Help me!" protested Bailey, desperate not to be forgotten, quivering helplessly between web and feelers.

"Hang in there, Johnny!" Spaulding said. "You ready, Syd?"

"Huh?" gasped Sydwinsky.

Spaulding could see by his glassy-eyed stares that Sydwinsky wasn't yet in his right mind, but he was too set on his own plan to be concerned about it. When he fired his chopping barrage and cut Sydwinsky's line, he was only vaguely aware of how indifferent the soldier was to either the shots spraying so dangerously closely to his ankles, or to the should-have-been shock of his Tarzan-vine ride across the tunnel-space. Spaulding only barely noticed how Sydwinsky's eyes remained fixed downward, his lips trembling uselessly as though in some vain attempt to say words without breath.

When Sydwinsky struck the wall, his body was almost too far below the grate for Ross to reach him--but even that peril did not seem to alter the soldier's morbid fascination with that same downward someplace _elsewhere_. Even after Ross had pulled Sydwinsky's practically droolingly mindless form through the grate, his eyes were _still_ locked downward.

That was when Ross and the colonel both found the time to look.

They should have known from the smell. As soon as the spider had fallen backward, there had been a light, foul, stench in the air. Spaulding hadn't thought about it, thinking it was simply the stink of its underside. But the odor must have been some sort of pheromone. Some method of social communication. Because, below the soldiers, ascending the seemingly endless stretch of web-infested tunnels, were not merely a few, but _dozens_ more of the same species of impossibly gigantic spider.

"Oh shit, oh shit," whispered the upside-down colonel, "get me the fuck out of here!"

"What?" gasped Bailey from the web, unable to see for the writhing beast blocking him. His voice cracked into sobs: "What's going on?"

"Get me out of here!" shrieked the colonel, shaking, rolling in place against the wall, desperate now to move, move, move! "_Get me out of here!_"

Ross and Sydwinsky, meanwhile, were tearing into Sydwinsky's backpack, ripping out the coiled rope and tossing its tangled length through the bars of the grate. When it passed the colonel's face, he yanked upon it so suddenly and so vigorously that he almost yanked it fully from his soldiers' hands. They pulled him up with only seconds to spare.

But, even as Spaulding came through the grate, his thoughts were already aimed backwards: "Johnny!"

The colonel span to see his friend still trapped between a hungry, angry, spider and an iron-gripping web; but there was no way to shoot him free. The only place where a break in the web could save him would be between the soldier and the spider, in a section of strand no greater that a foot in length. Even if he had a sniper scope, he couldn't have hit it from his angle. Bailey himself was the only one who could.

"Johnny," said the colonel, trying to keep his voice icy and even, but seeing the spiders coming, getting closer, seconds away. "You've got to do this yourself. We've got a rope for you, but you've got to cut the line you're standing on. Do you hear me? Cut the line you're on. Cut it with the gun, Johnny. Right between you and that fucking thing. Just shave it through. Do you hear me? Hurry!"

Bailey only inched--only budged--the weapon out.

"Hurry, goddamnit, hurry!" the colonel shrieked.

His gun was finally out, but his grimacing face betrayed little or no comprehension of the colonel's urgency. He didn't know what was coming. He couldn't see them. He nestled into the sticky webbing behind himself for extra distance from the spider's claws, reached his weapon out, and fired down upon the web beneath his feet. The reaction was instantaneous--and horrifying.

"No!" the colonel shrieked hysterically.

Bailey's machinegun fire had shaken the web, oscillating it just enough to put the spider in reach of his thigh. The claw ripped instantly through his fabric and flesh, and clamped down around his quadriceps. The spider anchored up its gruesome thorax and plunged its merciless fangs into his chest and throat.

A few seconds later, the two soldiers would still be holding their colonel by the collar and shoulders that they had used to pull him away from the grate, narrowly saving him from the eager talons and claws of the arachnid armada that was suddenly filling the web and the water-tunnel outside. Five or six of the dozens of spiders outside would be reaching their limbs through the bars at them in just the way the colonel had been reaching his screaming, angst-ridden hands outward only a moment before.

* * *

Spike was still in pain, but he was regaining his ability to think.

The first thing he had noticed were the wet spots on his body. They were where most of his pain was located. The wet spots brought him a very strange pain. They weren't deep pains like those he might feel if he were bitten by a pouncer or another large animal, but rather were numbing, burning pains. And the strangest thing about them was how he couldn't recall how he had received them. He knew that he had to have been injured while doing something with the other members of the pack--as it appeared that Whistler also had similar wounds--but he couldn't imagine what might have happened. What kind of an animal could injure him this way? His mind was a blank.

All he understood was that his wounds hurt more on the inside than the outside. When Whistler had earlier touched one of his wet spots with his snout, Spike had become angry and had poked Whistler hard in his ribs. That had been a strange reaction for Spike, because he didn't know _why_ he had become so angry. He, too, was curious--about Whistler's wounds--and also had also sniffed at his wet spots; but in both pack-members' cases, their response to the other's natural curiosity had been inordinately violent. Spike found that he would do almost anything to avoid confronting his pains. To avoid having to think about them and their unremembered cause. The hurt of his wounds hurt him the most not in the area of his wet spots, but somehow in his heart and in his head. Sometimes when Whistler touched one of Spike's wet spots, Spike saw flashes of hairy black; and it was that flash-image of hairy blackness that made his heart and head hurt. He didn't like thinking about his wet-spots. He wanted to do something else so he wouldn't have to think about them at all.

That was when he realized he was hungry. It had been a long time since Spike was last truly hungry. It was an instinct he recognized, certainly; and he surely understood how he was supposed to respond to its impulses; but under the circumstances, his hunger changed certain aspects of his priorities. If he were to do nothing but stand around and force himself to ignore his pains, and his wet-spots--and Whistler's wet-spots--then what else was there to do in his tightly bound little corner other than be quite bored? The best cure for boredom, of course, were the Ugly Things--the wonderfully unpredictable, magnificent Ugly Things--but his hunger dictated that he should seek something interesting to eat, and not simply stalk anything at all just because it happens to be fun. This was why Spike was torn between going after the Ugly Things on the ground and climbing up after the Ugly Thing in the strange-trees. The Ugly Things on the ground were clearly the ones armed with the Noisy Pain, and were also clearly the same Ugly Things that had so satisfactorily entertained him before; but it was the Ugly Thing in the strange-trees, though apparently unarmed, which felt the more interesting. Yes, the one in the strange-trees would most definitely make the more satisfying meal.

Apparently Whistler agreed. He was climbing up the strange-trees, too.

* * *

"You see anything down there?" called Ross.

"Negative," shouted Sydwinsky, his voice echoing throughout the vast chamber.

The chamber was a hundred feet tall, and perhaps twice as big along its sides. In the directions where the walls were visible, it could be seen how their rock faces were sullied and brownish. The chamber was perhaps composed of a similar material as that of the white-walls of the spiders' drain-tunnel and the corridor to which its grate had been connected, but these walls had been neither refined nor polished, and they thus emitted a light that was duller and coarser to the eye. The rock was in its raw state; giving the soldiers every impression that the visible walls were the bare walls of a natural, pre-existing cave, and that the rest of the more architectured structures had either been imported or constructed locally. And it wasn't the walls, but rather these constructions that were by far the singular fascination of the chamber.

It wasn't a machine so much as it was _machinery_. It was one-hundred feet across and tall, and it utterly dominated the middle-third of the chamber. It was an underworks. It was the heart of the pyramid. Though dormant now, it was obviously the power behind the pyramid's moving doors and regulated reservoirs. It was composed of levers and pulleys and intermeshing sprockets, each element an abominable exaggeration of stone-aged ingenuity. There were hundreds of rods and wheels and gears and pulleys, ranging in size from four to twenty feet in their diameters, all composed of _stone_--finely, flawlessly, carved stone--resting on massive frames of hammered iron. The spindles of the interlocking mesh-gears and the groves of the pulleys were threaded with hemp ropes--some as thick as two feet in diameter--with fibers that felt as coarse to the touch as steel. The machinery itself was ingeniously interwoven upon itself, its mounted gears and twisting conveyor-rope ensembles compactly forming an essentially cube-shaped mass of mechanical amazement.

The cube of the underworks sat recessed ten feet into the floor in what was clearly a water reservoir, though there was only a minimal amount of water wetting its bottom just then. The ropes and gears wound their way thickly down from the ceiling to the servos and pulleys at the bottom of the reservoir, twisting and winding in a course that implied a sophisticated locomotion. Poking up from the shallow water, the lines and pivots and joints could be seen multiplying into further layers of complexity that reached out in all directions through tiny passages beneath the floor.

The underworks also branched out above their heads, expanding in a layer of ropes and guide-wheels that reached out as far as the western and eastern walls. All along the occupied ceiling, there were lines and extensions that vanished upward through slots in the roof, leaving the ensemble thinner and less complex-looking the further it reached from the cube. By the time the ensemble touched the outer walls, only a few pulleys remained--holding tight the slack.

The floor of each edge of the chamber--east and west--was consumed by a large canal, running between openings in the northern and southern walls. These canals were currently dry, but their beds being angled upward seemed to indicate that they were intended to be fed by someplace higher above. They were also clearly intended to be fed by the underworks' reservoir as well, as the middle twenty feet of each side of the cube's deep reservoir were recessed to form channels that ramped out to them.

All in all, the accessible part of chamber floor was a very narrow place compared to the space which was occupied by the machine--and even that space was chopped in half by the spill-off ramps leading east and west, and the canals running north and south. For the soldiers, the search of the room had been a brief one. They had climbed down into and across the two dry spill-ramps to search all four sides around the underworks cube, and then had returned to their control position, having nowhere further to proceed. The only exits were the gleaming white-walled passage that they already knew led only to the spiders; a fifteen-foot stone door, closed, in the north of the chamber; and the two canals--which led forbiddingly deeper into the pyramid's labyrinthine infrastructure.

The soldiers would need to orchestrate a full, systematic search, one which probably would involve one or both canal passages, and they would need to finish consulting with their comrades on the surface in order to execute it. While the colonel carried on just such a consultation, the other soldiers continued to search the chamber for hints and clues and hunches.

Sydwinsky had been examining the banks of the western canal, attempting to peak around its southern corner and visually examine the expansive tunnel beyond. He could see that the passage wound its way through a gradual curve, running downward and out of sight. He had given up searching further when he had found himself over-reaching his shaky balance and nearly falling over the bank's edge, teetering above the canal's unforgiving-looking brick-stone bottom, some thirty feet below. He decided that if she had gone that way, she must have been the toughest little cunt on the planet, because no human being should have been able to drop such a distance without breaking her dainty little ankles. It was then that he noticed the crudely fashioned metal ladder leading down from the edge of the bank to a point about half-way to the canal bed. He couldn't imagine why the ladder would stop so short, but that question didn't prevent his immediate suppositions.

"Hey, Ross, hey!" he said. "Colonel!"

"Just a second, Ross," said the colonel, at the foot of the great underworks cube, clearly busy, speaking over the radio.

"Syd," replied Ross' erstwhile voice, from somewhere out of sight, around the corner to the south..

"Yeah, man, come here," said Sydwinsky, "I think I--"

"No," said Ross grimly. "_You_ come here."

Sydwinsky sighed impatiently and withdrew toward the sound of Ross' voice. He was disturbed to find him standing at the end of the long white passage near the spider's grate, dangerously close to its threshold--well within the reach of the spiders' lengthy pinchers.

"Hey, hey," said Sydwinsky, gesturing uncomfortably. "Get away from there, man."

"No, it's alright," said Ross. "They're gone."

Sydwinsky approached.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he asked.

"Look."

Sydwinsky glanced out through the bars, and saw what his comrade had intimated he should see. It was the Bailey's body, still hanging in the web. Desiccated, mauled, raped by a dozen gaping fang holes. His body was withered and contorted, wrapped in white silk, hanging from the web by a thread.

"Give me an incendiary," Ross said.

"What the fuck for?" demanded Sydwinsky.

"We can't just leave him like that."

"Oh, shit," Sydwinsky groaned disdainfully, reaching into his load-bearing equipment and removing the fist-sized cylinder. He handed it to Ross, quipping: "Sorry, I must have forgot my Bible back with my fuck mags."

"Look, just don't say _anything_, alright?" said Ross, pulling the pin.

He clenched the grenade tightly in his hand and reached his arm through the grate, tossing it toward the webbing. It missed the web and fell away toward someplace far below, exploding in the tunnel's distant depths.

"_Hey_," said Spaulding's troubled radio voice in their ears a moment later, "_what the fuck are you two doing down there?_"

Obviously, the colonel had heard the explosion. Ross chose to ignore him for the moment.

"Give me another one," Ross demanded.

"Come on, man," sneered Sydwinsky, "the man is fucking dead."

"Give it to me!"

"We might need these fucking things!"

"_I want you two back here right now_."

But Ross' serious stare drew compliance from his comrade, and he reluctantly placed a second cylinder into his hand. This time, Ross' throw was more accurate, and the grenade struck the web holding the body of the captain, lodging itself within inches of his defiled form. In a second or two, the devise expanded into a brilliant white fireball that seemed, at first, to only obstruct their view of the captain's body, but then completely consumed him; sweeping him into a blaze of red and orange flames. Then the web-strand itself finally snapped under its torture, and the smoldering, veiled body made its descent into the webby depths, sinking from sight like a burial at sea, slicing through the subsequent webs beneath it by the heat of its own fiery aura.

"_I said now!_"

And the two men began to return--at first solemnly; but, at the end, lurching into a dash.

* * *

More than ever, Lara was determined to carry out her plan.

Upon entering the chamber, she had quickly, almost mindlessly begun searching for an exit. She had wasted all of her precious time chasing about the feet of the underworks, until it had finally dawned on her slowly calming mind that she couldn't just leave. Not without Rainy. Not without being sure. She needed to carry out her plan. She needed to capture the soldiers alive and ransom them for Rainy.

She knew, however, while watching the men in black narrowly evading the spiders' grasps, that if she attempted to approach them immediately, she would find them just as insanely hyped from their past minutes' terror as she had been. They wouldn't have been capable of listening to her threats, nor even of fearing her unfailing, perfect aim. The gunfight that would have ensued would have been fought to the last screaming man, and she would have had no hostages to take--only dead bodies.

She had needed an advantage. An edge. And it had occurred to her how she might get one.

The structure of the underworks before her was immense and compact, dauntingly sophisticated, and completely inert. It's ropes and gears and rugged metal rods may have been too tightly bound together to allow easy sight from one side of the cube through to the other, but there was plenty of space amidst the mass for a singular little lithe female body to maneuver. While the men in black outside treated their wounds and scraped off their resiny reminders, she had been crawling silently through the giant guts of the machine itself; twisting from gear to gear, sliding around ropes, and braces, and mounts until she found a vantage high above the floor of the chamber. From there, she had the bird's eye view of the entire western half of the room, and she had been able to watch the men in black scurrying about, consolidating themselves for their next maneuver.

She had cover, concealment, and perfect line-of-sight. She couldn't imagine a better position for herself--except that two of her primary targets had abruptly left her field of view just as she had settled herself into position. However, that half of a sniper's job is simply to wait was one tactical principle that Lara understood quite well. She wasn't disappointed by her targets' temporary uncooperativeness. In fact, while she waited, seventy to eighty feet above the gray-haired leader's head, she had the opportunity to fulfill the first of her intentions before even issuing a single command.

She could hear only one-half of his radio conversation, but it was the important half:

Pacing nervously and speaking into his headset, the leader said:

"Colonel Spaulding, here...Why? What's up?...Yeah, the raptors; we've met...What's your situation now, Lieutenant?...It's hydraulic. I'm looking at its machinery right now...Who cares. How's my Interlocutor?...Is there a problem?...She's not gone. She's down here with us-- Somewhere...My little buddy, Rainy? That's great if you've got him, but he's not the important thing. I want that fucking devise so I can go the fuck home. I _hurt_, Lieutenant...No time to go into it. Suffice it to say that we won't be getting back out the way we came down. Just a second, Ross! In the meantime, I want you to start looking for the ILC up there...When I saw her a few minutes ago, she obviously wasn't carrying it...And, let me guess: She wasn't _wearing_ a tacsack when you lost her...She stashed it up there, somewhere, Wallis. Go find it for me...Use the Interlocutor...If you don't want this job, I'll give it to someone else...In the meantime, the Wonder-brat could turn up anywhere, anytime. If you or any of your people see her, your orders are to capture her alive--at least until we have the ILC in hand. No slip-ups. I don't care how she provokes you. Alive. Wounding her's okay. Don't need her arms or legs. Just her head. And her mouth. Anyway, do you got that? Alive."

Lara was gratified to hear first-hand how highly the gray-haired leader--Colonel Spaulding--valued her life. But more important to her cause had been the information he had inadvertently given to her about Rainy Hedgebrook. Clearly, he was still alive; and, of a certainty, safely in their possession. The coming negotiations wouldn't have to tap-dance around that question again, at least. The only issue she seemed to have left to resolve was the question of just how highly the colonel valued the lives of his men. And his own life, for that matter. These were questions that seemed likely to be answered in the next several seconds.

While watching the colonel pacing along the edge of the reservoir beneath her at the foot of the underworks cube, Lara heard rumbling, crackling explosions echoing from the white-walled tunnel to the spiders' grate. As the explosion's rumble continued, and the colonel grumbled through the radio at his men's obviously unauthorized use of pyrotechnics, Lara heard the footfalls of the soldiers returning into the chamber. In a moment, all three would be standing fully in the open; far away from cover, completely unsuspecting. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for. She held her breath and sited carefully, tracking their movements, predicting, leading them with her gunsite. She became so focused upon her aim, in fact, that she hadn't fully realized how certain nuances of the distant explosions' fiery growl hadn't quite subsided by the time the rest of the explosion had. By the time she had realized her error, however, she had already taken her shots, and was facing her consequences.

She shot at them--deliberately missing--and the men lurched wildly in three different directions.

"Halt!" she shrieked, knowing her voice would echo throughout the vast chamber, giving them no hints to her actual position.

She had hoped her shots would be sufficient threat to gain control of them and make them realize that they were vanquished before they had time to reason it through. When they didn't obey her, however, she knew that a more stern approach would be required. She only had a second or two left before they could reach cover, so she cried out again--

"Halt, I said!"

--and punctuated her demand with a sharply placed bullet hole through a red-headed running man's bicep.

The man fell and screamed, "You bitch!" stumbling toward the edge of the western canal, obviously believing he was more injured than he really was.

She had hoped her demonstration would have sufficed, but it clearly had not. The other men were rapidly seeking shelter in the edges of the very same mechanical cube that harbored her own sniper-post, and it wouldn't be long before they would both become not only impossible to fire upon, but in the position to potentially stumble upon a viable line-of-sight against her--being so far below her, and she being so starkly silhouetted against the ceiling light of the greater cavern.

"Halt," Lara screamed, "or one of you dies!"

She only had an instant to demonstrate her commitment to her threat, and there was only one obvious target. The red-headed man in black who had jumped over the bank of the canal and was somehow supporting himself beyond its edge, his head and shoulders just above ground level, aiming his MP5 around and around and around. He seemed to believe he wasn't exposing enough of himself to be a target. The thought amused her. He probably also believed that her warning shot had been intended to kill. She would educate him. She took aim.

She took aim, and she didn't shoot.

His head and his shoulders; that was all that was exposed.

Her shot would be a killing shot.

Lara was calm and lucid. And that was precisely the problem. Even while she watched the other men in black, maneuvering into potentially dangerous positions beneath her, she couldn't bring herself to pull her trigger. She kept hearing Bean's voice in her head, his last admonition to her, '_Don't let them make you hate._' She knew that their orders were to take her alive; thus--however convoluted the ethics were--she couldn't just write this off as self-defense. Before, she was just returning fire; but this time it would be cold, calculated murder. The realization awoke emotions in her, forcing her to question herself. Could she really do this? Could she really pull this trigger? The answer sickened her. It was _yes_.

There was only one way that she could go through with her shot, and that way was to allow herself to judge the cosmic worth of that human being's life down there at the canal--and deem it _valueless_. The only way she could pull the trigger was for her to summon from within herself a torrent of pure and unmitigated malevolence and pour it down the site of her barrel. Was this not precisely the hate that Bean had warned her about? Was this not the very face of the darkness he had prophesied that she would have to confront?

Her paralyzing meditation ended up costing her more than just her shot.

It nearly cost her life.

While hesitating, she realized that the persist _growl_ of the previous moment's explosions weren't related to the explosions at all. And they weren't coming from the tunnel. They were coming from behind her.

* * *

So, she _hadn't_ fled.

It was very convenient that the Croft girl had stayed, Spaulding had thought when the shooting had first begun. He hadn't been looking forward to leading a full-blown search of the pyramid's convoluted innards, nor having to face the raptors--which he was certain must have been somewhere waiting for them deeper within--along with whatever the hell else might live there. With the girl still in the immediate area, mistakenly thinking she could intimidate his soldiers, he felt a glimmer of hope that there might still be a way to end this ridiculous hunt without any further loss of Operations Force life. He was perfectly happy with the Wonder-brat's choice to stick around, whatever her own intentions--all the way until he realized that the reason why her suddenly discernible body was falling from its high sniper perch wasn't because of her panic from his encroach, but rather from the encroach of his two other enemies--each far more formidable than himself.

But it was amazing to watch.

They were more falling than climbing; but purposefully, rhythmically.

While Lara's body bounced awkwardly from ropes to gears to trellises, and down, down, down through the open gaps in-between, the raptors slithered through the lines, swam round the gears, perched upon the trellises like hawks in respite, and swooped down over her, after her--relentlessly, mercilessly. Their claws reached and scratched, their jaws snapped and nipped, and their tails whipped, directing their bodies through the guts of the machine like the rudders of sailboats through stormy surf. Spaulding was so fascinated by the grace and fluidity of their deadly procession that it wasn't until her body had slipped fully from the thick of the cube and into the ankle-high shallows at the bottom of the reservoir that he recalled how he still needed her for himself.

"Christ," Spaulding fumed dreadfully, "we need her alive!"

"What?" gasped Ross, next to him in the machinery, clinging to the vertical shaft of a lever-arm.

"Move it!" barked Spaulding. "Get down there! Get them off her!"

The raptors had plummeted over where Lara had plopped down into the water on her haunches, and had only missed biting off a chunk of her fleeing calves by an inch. Her body launched itself across a span of horizontal ropeline, disappearing over the hip-high barrier and into the thicker mechanism beyond while the dinosaurs dashed futilely after--halted at the discovery that their bodies were just a few inches too fat to follow.

While Spaulding and Ross dug themselves through the ropes, and ducked or climbed around the gears and housings as fast as they could, they could only but watch while the raptors swirled through the machinery around Lara Croft, climbing over the viscera above her, or through the spaces in front of her--or around her--in maddening efforts to corner her or cut her off and trap her between structures too tightly constructed to allow her passage between. But the raptors were confounded again and again by the young woman's tenacity, cunning, and sheer agility as she made her way so swiftly through spaces so seemingly impassible that even the other humans were at a loss as to where she might re-emerge from one instant to the next.

But Spaulding _had_ to find her, and predict her, and protect her. The raptors wanted her badly, but no where near as badly as he did. But, by the time the soldiers had gotten themselves into a vantage to offer fire-support, their pursuit had woven them so deeply into the cube that there was almost no chamber light to see by. Not only were hopelessly lost, they were virtually blind. When they finally came upon a lane of clearing where they had a clear line of sight upon Lara Croft, it was only to find that the rest of the cube around her was so dark that they couldn't see the raptors. They could see her shadow jumping and ducking and lunging, but only the _heads_ of the raptors--appearing and vanishing, appearing and vanishing, like randomly placed, deadly jacks-in-the-boxes.

Spaulding and Ross instinctively split from one another toward where they each intuited the raptors might be heading. An instant later, they regretted it. Having flung themselves to the outskirts of Lara's lane, they cut loose with their machineguns and received instant--if terrible--gratification: The creatures squealed and paused!--leaving Lara Croft suddenly free to dash.

The creatures, in the meantime, suddenly whipped out from the near shadows and pounced toward their new attackers--bearing a more gruesome, a more deliberate, pair of expressions than Spaulding had recalled them wearing back on the mainland. Suddenly forced from fire-support to self-defense, Spaulding moaned in horror and scrambled timidly back.

* * *

The confines were too tight to use her guns.

She needed her hands and her arms free--to grab and climb, to deflect and roll, to direct and slide. The raptors had been seemingly everywhere, nipping at her skin, fraying her at her edges like a mistreated sweater. Luckily, nothing important had been bitten, and nothing at all had been bitten fully off; but they had nipped more skin than she cared to dwell upon. When she was finally freed from their perpetual tag-team snap-attacks (which had apparently been interdicted by the men in black themselves), she found herself running almost madly, feeling mildly amused at herself. Her amusement came from, first: her regard of her own fortuitous choice to not shoot them dead; and then, second: her laughable realization of just how great a role vanity (of all things) had played in keeping her alive. Throughout her evasion, all she could think about were the strapless night gowns a scar from a serious raptor bite would prevent her from ever wearing again.

Fully believing, then, that her luck was on the upswing, she was completely unsurprised when she dashed upon a large opening in the reservoir floor only a few seconds after the raptors had taken their recess from her. It was draining the shallow water from the surrounding wet surfaces, but otherwise seemed perfectly inviting; emitting small amounts of light, reminiscent of the surrounding cavern. Given that the raptors were still behind her--if currently busy against her other foes--the choice between struggling sluggishly back up into the machinery versus a chance to run effortlessly through a tunnel beneath it seemed like no choice at all. She was counting herself blessed as she leaped down into the opening and disappeared.

She didn't know that the red-haired soldier was going to leap down into the passage right after.


	21. Chapter Twenty: The Subchambers

"_Say hello again, my friends_

_I've got to go_

_The ritual calls to me_

_Screams twist in harmony_

_Blinding lights reveal _

_The thoughts that shouldn't be_

_The ritual calls to me_

_Silent insanity..._

"_Revelations breaking through_

_The truth distorts_

_Untimely accident_

_Your precious mind is lost_

_Try to regain again my friend_

_Your sanity_

_The ritual calls to me_

_Melodic agony_

"_And you really thought that you'd never_

_Be the one who bleeds?_

_It's all so clear to me now_

_Why can't you see..?_

"_Oooh what'cha gonna do_

_When your life is sold_

_To a world so cold?_

_Hey, what'cha gonna say_

_When you're on your way_

_On your darkest day?_

_Hey!_

_Darkest day..._"

**--Testament.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY:** **"**The Subchambers.**"**

It had taken several minutes for the soldiers to finish exploring the royal quarters.

They had found twelve rooms in all, each one adjoined either directly or through no more than one other room to the great atrium at the center. The atrium was clearly the focus of the royal quarters; the symbolic heart of the pyramid's entire architectural paradigm--a paradigm which was clearly intended to be an expression of tremendous mystical power and political sophistication. Where the pyramid as a whole was amazing, and the royal quarters in general were breathtaking, the atrium was virtually supernatural. Well beyond the mere preternatural design of the place, the details of its ornamentation challenged the minds and the credulity of the explorers, humbling them; irresistibly quieting them internally, leaving them speechless while they passed from quiet room to quiet room.

Foremost among the wonders of the atrium was the metal miniature of the pyramid's outer structure that rested in the center of what was obviously a fountain. The fountain was a square pool, now dry, twenty-five-feet long per side and at least three-feet deep. The model of the pyramid was as wide as fifteen feet across its bottom-most base and more than five feet tall. Its insides could be seen to be hollow, and the dozens of metal plates of each of its sides, wedged like shingles, had been shaped with exquisite, painstaking attention to detail. Its roof was lavishly decorated with a shaped-metal model of the citadel itself--a three-dimensional map which, from all appearances, seemed to correspond to the layout of the true-life city in every respect save the latter's ruinedness.

The dry pool supporting the model was fed by two narrow canals that had been carved into the floor--each canal a foot deep, and three-feet-wide. The banks of the canals were augmented with one-foot-tall side-walls, formed from polished and ornately engraved brick-like stone blocks. One of the canals lead easterly, passing beneath a wall to where it fed in and out of a separately-chambered communal bath. This canal left the bath chamber and the royal quarters westerly, running through the floor of the room the soldiers had originally been delivered to and exiting through a two-foot culvert in the western wall. The other canal ran from the pyramid fountain northerly, where it opened up into a smaller dry pool that surrounded and supported a ten-foot square platform upon which a majestically embellished throne had been erected. Beyond the throne, northerly, was the three-step depressed stage that Cavanaugh had walked through on his way to the eastern windows. This 'stage', however, could now be seen for what it really was--now that the soldiers had moved from the smaller lift-room and had fully entered the great atrium. It was not really a stage at all; rather, it was the lowered floor of the atrium's audience chamber. The concentric rings of seats were not seats for an entertainment or drama audience, but rather for the members of a royal court.

The remaining chambers of the quarters were unremarkable save for their polished and inexplicable white radiance--whose phenomenon Doc and Cavanaugh had explained as being the same as that which had illuminated the walls of the reservoir-ridden chamber through which the two had entered the biosphere from the caves. The tale they had recounted at that time had produced a healthy wariness in the other soldiers which had slowed the progress of their search, leaving them cautiously checking and double checking every surface for dread that these white walls might be traitorously harboring the same sorts of hidden traps as the one which had claimed the life of hapless Ali. Their thoroughness had uncovered no hidden dangers. However, it had been almost certainly due to his added caution that Wallis had managed to discover the second key-triggered lift platform which was occupying a corner in the farthest north-east chamber. This new platform was somewhat smaller than the one which had brought them up from the docks and into the quarters' south-west chamber, but otherwise they seemed identical to one-another. Its lower destination appeared to be the open streets of the city on the eastern outside, some forty feet below the windows.

Until they had discovered this second lift, they had entertained no more than tentative thoughts of trying to leave the royal quarters. The first lift lead only back to a place where they knew there were two hungry dinosaurs waiting for them, and there were no stairs or ladders in any of the quarters' rooms or windows leading anywhere beyond their twelve found rooms. They had expected to find further chambers, or additional passages, or some other options for further exploration; but after they had traveled through every doorway on the level, the only passages that remained unexplored were the open slots between the white-stone beams intersecting in the striated, sun-slotted roof above their heads; and the spaces between those rib-like beams were clearly too narrow to pass a human body. Though the southern windows, they could see that their roof extended southerly into a seamless intersection with the roof of the stuppa platform at the center of the city; but the only way to climb up to the roof would have been through the windows, and that sort of climb seemed a pointless risk of their personnel's lives--especially since they had been given no motivation (nor any orders) to leave.

But that was before the moment they found the second lift and simultaneously regained contact with Colonel Spaulding.

Tripp had been resting beside the Interlocutor, and Doc had been with him, checking his medical interventions, when Wallis' droning calls into his radio finally garnered him a reply. It was just a moment after he had announced his discovery of the second lift, and Cavanaugh had been coming to investigate. Kini, meanwhile, had been on the south side of the atrium, examining the pyramid model and the city on its roof. All of them became instantly attentive when Wallis exclaimed "sir?" and excitedly stood upright.

"Jesus, are we glad to hear from you!" exclaimed Wallis while the others gathered around.

By then, all of the other soldiers had either activated the headsets they were wearing--if they hadn't lost them in the water--or had unpacked and deployed their back-up headsets from their load-carrying gear. Only Rainy, radioless, remained outside of the circle; sitting with his knees tucked nervously in his chest, watching from the south-east corner of the atrium.

Kini had distanced himself emotionally and mentally from the other soldiers since their search and investigation of the chambers. He had been ignoring them, expressing a greater interest instead toward Rainy Hedgebrook and the model pyramid. As a result, Rainy had been despondent throughout his captivity; watching the angry native watching him. Even while the radio conversation took place, Kini was less engaged in the business of his American counterparts than in his icy regarded of the boy across the room. By the time the radio conversation had ended, the expression in the big man's eyes had gradually shifted from one of contempt and hatred, through contemplation, and to--as though having reached a triumphant final stage--one of scheming invention. Rainy watched Kini, and Kini watched Rainy--and neither fully understood until well later.

Over their headsets, Colonel Spaulding's voice said: "_What's up?_"

Lieutenant Wallis said: "We were attacked by...Jesus, I don't know how to fucking describe them."

"_Yeah," _replied the colonel. "_The raptors; we've met._"

"Raptors?" asked Wallis.

But the colonel hadn't the patience to explain. "_What's your situation now, Lieutenant?_"

"Secure, I think," Wallis said, glancing around, trying to affect in his voice an appropriate awe for the royal quarters and the atrium. "We're on the top floor of one of the city buildings. Some kind of mechanical lift pushed us up here. I don't have any idea how it works."

"_It's hydraulic,_" Spaulding told him. "_I'm looking at its machinery right now._"

"Who the fuck _built_ all this shit?"

"_Who cares. How's my Interlocutor?_"

Wallis looked at the machine. "It's fine, sir, but..."

"_Is there a problem?_"

"You could say that," Wallis sighed, his voice tentative--as though fearing reprimand. "We lost the girl down the drain. That means the ILC is gone with her."

"_She's not gone,_" Spaulding assured him. "_She's down here with us_--"

Lieutenant Wallis interrupted him, relieved and excited: "You've got her--?"

"--_somewhere_."

"Oh," said Lieutenant Wallis, disappointed, but not fully crestfallen. He extended his consolation prize: "Well, we've got the boy back, in any case."

"_My little buddy, Rainy?_" asked the colonel, acrid and ironic. When he continued, his voice seemed more serious; strangely remorseful. "_That's great if you've got him, but he's not the important thing. I want that fucking devise so I can go the fuck home. I hurt, Lieutenant_."

"What happened?"

"_No time to go into it,_" the colonel said. "_Suffice it to say that we won't be getting back out the way we came down. In the meantime, I want you to start looking for the ILC up there._"

"Up here?"

"_When I saw her a few minutes ago, she obviously wasn't carrying it._"

"That's right!" Wallis mused, recalling the events prior to their attack upon the natives in the clearing. "She put it in a tacsack."

"_And, let me guess,_" said the colonel, "_She wasn't wearing a tacsack when you lost her._"

"Don't think so, sir."

"_She stashed it up there, somewhere, Wallis. Go find it for me._"

"How?"

"_Use the Interlocutor._"

"I thought the tracking system was inop."

"_If you don't want this job, I'll give it to someone else._"

The sound of the colonel's voice reflected no attempt to mitigate his disappointment in Wallis' lack of imagination and initiative. The lieutenant felt a glimmer of panic in the realization that he was being evaluated poorly. He hadn't realized that even under these severe circumstance, he was _still_ being judged. He was still being tested.

"Alright! Alright!" Wallis protested, defending himself. "I'll figure something out."

"_In the meantime,_" the colonel said, "_the Wonder-brat could turn up anywhere, anytime. If you or any of your people see her, your orders are to capture her alive--at least until we have the ILC in hand. No slip-ups. I don't care how she provokes you. Alive. Wounding her's okay. Don't need her arms or legs. Just her head. And her mouth. Anyway, do you got that? Alive_."

Tripp and Doc both smirked as the colonel described his conditions for Lara Croft's capture. The other soldiers remained stony and contemplative, however; thinking about the operation's other, more immediate implications.

"Alive; yes, sir," Wallis said.

Wallis and Cavanaugh had both been prepared to ask more questions: About the colonel's recommendations for how they should best proceed with their search mission; about the colonel's present health, his personnel, and his tactical situation. But before they could raise their voices, the timber and volume of the colonel's transmission abruptly shifted up and down, and he sputtered:

"_Oh--what the--? What the fuck--?_"

"Sir?" demanded Wallis, anxiously.

The other soldiers also looked to one-another in puzzled frustration as the colonel's voice faded back into muffled distortions and finally ended with a cryptic: "_Wait one_..."

After that, even the transmission's static terminated.

"Colonel?" asked Doc.

"Sir?" demanded Cavanaugh.

"He cut us off," announced Wallis, standing, facing around in order to look into each man's eyes.

"What'll we do now?" asked Tripp, still sitting on the ground.

"We do what the man said," said Wallis, gesturing toward the city beyond the windows. "Croft was loose in the ruins before we even got here. She could have been a lot of places. The colonel's right. She probably stashed up here it someplace."

"What if she lost it?" asked Tripp. "She might have dropped it in the rapids."

"I don't think so," said Wallis, tapping the green, soap-bar shaped device hanging at his sternum. "Signal's clean. If she'd dropped it, the water would be fucking with the circuitry by now."

Cavanaugh nodded, checking his own device's liquid-crystal display, sighing: "Yeah, we'd know if it was under the water."

"That still doesn't mean she didn't leave it back on the mainland, man," interjected Doc. "How the hell are we supposed it find it without the tracking system?"

"The old-fashioned way," said Wallis.

"Just go out there and _look_?" asked Doc.

"Yeah, why not?" replied Wallis. "She didn't have that much of a head start. There's not a whole lot of ground she could have covered." He pointed toward the stuppa roof beyond the southern windows. "She jumped from that tower. If we spiral out, we could probably eventually find it."

"Man, that'd take a fucking year," moaned Doc.

"Not if we track it," said Wallis.

"I thought the tracking program was fucked," Cavanaugh said.

"It is," said Wallis. "But Jake Corbin's program tracked signal strength and all kinds of other high-tech shit so it could give us a grid coordinate. All we need is a cardinal direction. That's what I think the colonel wanted me to do: Plug the Interlocutor to my PADD and see if we can make something work."

"That would be a good start," said Cavanaugh. "How long will it take?"

"Don't know," Wallis said. "Might not work at all."

"What I'm worried about is our two little friends out there," said Doc bitterly. "There's more than one way to get up from that fucking dock."

"Yeah," Cavanaugh said, touching his barely clotted face wounds. "We definitely don't want to be caught out in the open again. Why don't you get started on it, Wallis, and let us know what our best prospects are before we just go out there blindly. I'd think we can afford to wait until at least we've got a better sense of where we're going."

"No, Cavanaugh, I don't think that'd be such a good idea," Wallis said. "This is the first time we've had the ILC immobile. If she gets it back to it and escapes before we're ready, then we'll really be fucked. We ought to at least be out there--if for no other reason, than just to intercept h_er._ I'm in charge, and I'm making a command decision, here. I say we go."

Doc was saying: "Well, I ain't going out there and getting slaughtered--"

and Wallis was arguing: "Look, I know _this _in and out, but _that"_--he pointed at the Interlocutor--"I don't know enough about that--"

when Kini unexpectedly interrupted: "I know where to go."

While the American soldiers had been debating their thoughts and plans among one-another, they had been well-aware that Kini's attention had been drifting from them again; his eyes seemingly irresistibly locked on Rainy, who was gazing back at him silently, fearfully. Kini's eyes had seemed a deliberated whir of contemplations and prospects. When he spoke to them again, they could easily tell that it had been something in the soldiers' own tones and attitudes that had brought him back to them. They hadn't expected his interruption, but it didn't surprise them.

"What?" asked Wallis.

"I know where to go," said Kini. "I know where it is."

"You do?" gasped Tripp incredulously.

"Why the hell didn't you say so before?" demanded Wallis.

But Kini didn't answer--he was icily confident, but unmovable.

"Well," demanded Wallis, "where is it, then?"

"I must show you," Kini explained.

"Alright, let's go!" exclaimed Tripp.

"What's this '_let's'_ shit all of a sudden?" asked Doc. "You're gonna stay your broke ass here."

"I'm alright," insisted Tripp, trying to stand. "I'm as strong as an ox--"

"Stay the fuck down!" barked Doc.

"We're going to need you able to travel later, Tripp," said Cavanaugh, though throughout he was staring apprehensively at Kini's inscrutable face. "We're grateful for the thought, but you'll do us more good if you just get rested up."

"Gotcha," sighed Tripp, relaxing reluctantly.

"What other information have you been withholding from us?" Wallis asked Kini.

Kini was silent.

"What else do you know?" Wallis demanded.

Kini remained silent.

"What do you _want_?" There was finally strain audible in Wallis' voice. His tone _demanded_ an answer.

He wouldn't get one.

"Goddamnit," hissed Wallis quietly, defeatedly, turning to Cavanaugh: "Well, what do you think?"

"It's something," Cavanaugh said.

Doc said: "It's better than wandering aimless, and that's all I ask."

"Well?" asked Cavanaugh. "Command decision, Lieutenant. Go or no?"

"Go," sighed Wallis. "Keep your PADDs on my frequency, and I'll upload whatever information I can get."

"Right," replied Cavanaugh, glancing back toward the city-side lift, his gesture signaling the others to follow. He had taken two steps toward the north-east chamber when he realized that Kini was barking an order--

"You! Move!"

--at Rainy Hedgebrook.

"Now, wait one goddamned minute!" shouted Wallis, reaching the absolute end of his tolerance, and stepping defiantly between the boy and the giant.

"He comes," said Kini coldly, looking down at Wallis, dismissively.

"Like hell--he's my prisoner!" snapped Wallis. "I've about had enough of you!"

Kini looked at the American soldier with mild amusement, his black eyes regarding the lieutenant's noisy countenance up and down, as though understanding his words but ignoring the man. Cavanaugh, more familiar with Kini, could easily see how ridiculous the nominal lieutenant was managing to appear in the powerful Indian's eyes. He intervened before matters worsened.

"--There's no way in hell that you're going to--" Wallis was saying.

"Maybe he's hitting on something," interrupted Cavanaugh.

The words coming from a respected peer took Wallis by surprise.

"What?" Wallis asked. "What do you mean?"

"Who do you have here?" Cavanaugh asked. "Who's gonna guard him?"

"What are you talking about?" barked Wallis, offended by the insinuation.

"You'll be busy."

"Right," replied Wallis, "but Tripp--"

"Tripp needs to _rest_, Wallis," Cavanaugh said.

"No, I don't," declared Tripp defiantly, attempting to sit up more straightly, but only betraying the sluggishness of his arms and legs. "I'm fine!"

"Shut up, Tripp," snapped Doc, who perceived Cavanaugh's intentions--even if he didn't understand them.

Tripp obeyed, perplexedly.

"There's three of us," Cavanaugh continued. "We're all armed; we've all got our eyes open. He's safer with us."

Wallis thought for a moment, clicked his cheek doubtfully, and then conceded.

"Look, Cavanaugh," Wallis said. "You just better be right. Because if you lose him…."

The lieutenant glanced across the soldier's faces, dimly aware of the cabal, but unable to grasp its nature.

"You just better _not_ lose him," Wallis finally said, one sigh later.

Cavanaugh nodded.

"Let's go, kid," said Doc.

Rainy only stared dumbly; having been paying close attention to the proceedings, but still extending hope that the outcome might yet be decided differently. Kini assured him otherwise.

"Move!" Kini snarled, marching to the boy, heaving him up by his arm so vigorously it seemed likely he'd de-socket his shoulder in the process. But, based on the boy's _silent_ reluctant acquiescence, it seemed safe to assume otherwise.

While Kini was away in the corner, forcing Rainy to his feet, Doc and Cavanaugh were already walking toward the waiting lift.

"I sure as shit hope you know what you're doing," said Doc.

"Yeah, so do I," said Cavanaugh.

* * *

Lara had fallen in through an open doorway in the floor of the underworks that was more than three times the size of any of her exitways. She had been surprised when she had realized that the water on the floor was only calf-deep. Given the chamber's smallish size, and the massive flow of water that had been continuously entering, she had expected it to be much deeper. She soon saw, however, how the bulk of the heavy water had been draining down the gaping two-foot hole in the center of the square room's floor. The water was draining away to someplace far, far below.

The walls of the subchamber were composed of a material similar to that of the walls surrounding the great underworks above, but the coarser, browner light surrounding her there was even less bright, and its walls' rougher texturing gave it an even dirtier and less settling ambiance. She was standing in one of a maze of fifteen-foot, cube-shaped, rooms that were joined to one-another by ten-foot-long crawl-tunnels which lead from each subchamber's floor, ceiling, and wall, to its adjacent subchamber's floor, ceiling, or wall. Some of the subchambers were joined to as few as only one other subchamber, while other subchambers were interconnected in as many as six different cube-directions; making the complex a dark, perplexing, three-dimensional maze. It was an internetwork interconnecting unto itself in a sprawling, labyrinthine convolution of passages, up or down, side or side, front or rear.

The subchambers were grim and dreary. They were almost cave-like; claustrophobic for their dankness--like a dungeon or a crypt--and she had entered them running. Her strong legs had thrust her up from where she had landed and had launched her into a short-lived burst of fiery speed. She had been intending to put her sense of the features of the underworks above to good use, dashing directly in the direction of her shortest possible escape from beneath the convoluted mechanical contrivance. That hope was dashed, however, by the infuriating unpredictability of the subchambers beneath it.

The path she had chosen led east, but it also extended darkly downward into terra-incognita. She crawled through that passage (although she more slithered than crawled) with a heart full of hope. She had committed herself without inhibition to the claustrophobic tunnel, hoping for as good a set of options as those offered her in the first. Although the next subchamber offered only three outgoing tunnels, and not one was toward her desired east, after choosing an alternate direction, up, she found her enthusiasm tragically rekindled. A passage from there led east. She took it, optimistically.

After this one lucky exception, however, virtually none of the subsequent subchambers had been either obedient to her desires, nor kind to her orientation. She had, at first, only made a single deviation from her east, but another deviation and another soon followed. Before long, she had found herself traveling up and down and side to side with no sense of progress at all, save the steadily increasing, infuriating, sense that she had been wasting her time.

It was not that Lara had become lost, but the convoluted path she had been forced to follow had robbed her of the mental vantage. She had found that she could no longer visualize where her location in the maze might be relative to the underworks above. From subchamber to subchamber, she had found herself becoming less and less capable of deciding confidently between her choices. She had found herself unable to visualize any path--save a return to her starting point--that had seemed more likely than any other to lead her out of the subchambers' winding, tangling, infuriating sinews.

After dashing and cursing and climbing and sliding for minutes that had felt like hours, Lara was finally forced to concede to herself that she had gotten herself no closer to an escape than she had been before entering. She had paused after climbing into a chamber from the low-west, intending to reassess her methodology. The cube had exits to the upward east and horizontal-north. She had hoped that an epiphany would visit her once she had paused to think, but no such revelations came. The dark and grimness of the chambers had finally been successful in their conspiracy with her mounting frustration and disappointment. Her self-assuredness had finally begun to falter. She found herself looking toward an east passage and pausing--considering the north passage instead. She was dreading the tight, uncomfortable struggle which was all her precious east passages had ever given to her so far.

It was then that her stillness had given her the quiet to hear the sounds coming from behind her. She drew her weapons swiftly and span, certain that her keen ears had just heard the sounds of squeaking boots on a bone-dry, weakly incandescent floor. She kneeled next to the east-passage from which she had just emerged, aiming down its tight, dreary passage in the expectation of being immediately forced to defend its emptiness from the _someone_ whom she had heard--a someone who (according to her usually impeccable sense of timing) should have been just that moment unwelcomely trying to fill it.

She found the passage empty, and she questioned: _Hadn't it been footsteps?_

Was she really losing her touch?

Watching down the passage--at first only via gunsite and then by the comprehensive parallax of both of her eyes--she listened to the chambers and felt her heart quicken, alarmed by what she was hearing.

And then seeing.

She had heard a sound again--one not quite the same as the first squeak, but entirely _unlike_ it either. The difference could possibly have been explained by a difference in _distance_. The new sounds were farther away, but were clearly edging closer, becoming louder, fuller. She heard joints creaking and pulling and moving; she heard a faint roaring, and a crackling, and the structure's anxious protests being swiftly overruled. Finally, she felt the entire subchamber-world trembling, and she saw the chilling sight of a layer of water whipping swiftly from the south to north, leaving behind a shallow layer of crystalline aqua-effervescence that quickly, imminently, began to thicken and rise.

She had known that there was the water spilling after her in into the subchambers. She had known that it was probably building up in the spaces furthest deep. But she had never imagined the subchambers could fill _so quickly_ from so minor a starting draught. It then crystallized within her what was happening: The meaning of the sounds of increased machine-activity, the rumble of the chambers around her, the steadily rising water. This place, these subchambers, were a bleed-off, a pressure-valve, for the water-powered dynamo above. The underworks were grinding violently back to life with her trapped and lost in its now-churning guts.

Her heart pounding in rhythm with the thrust of the churning water rising in the low west, Lara turned east and made a desperate play for the up-exit out. She had to escape not just in any direction, but escape up--to the higher ground--and east was the only exit up. It chilled her to think that she was about to be trapped and drowned in the churning bowels of some great machine; but she would swiftly forget that thought once faced with the true ordeal that would be awaiting her. When she entered the up-slanting eastern tunnel, it was only to see solid metal grate blocking off her escape.

* * *

When Sydwinsky had abandoned them to go down into the ground passage after Croft, Spaulding had found himself hardly more than a breath away from shouting after him in protest. His soldier, of course, had acted precisely correctly--he had continued the mission--but that knowledge was weak consolation for a man sucking down the foul breath of a heinous, flesh-shredding beast with the agility of a squirrel and the apparent hunger of a black hole. The raptor after him was completely invisible against the shadows of the underworks, where Spaulding was feverishly struggling, kicking, climbing, and falling in the ankle-deep murk.

He had worked his way clear of his demon's first assault by edging backward against the waist-tall floor-mounted pulley behind himself and throwing his upper bodyweight recklessly backward between its tensioned ropes, flipping himself head-over-heels clumsily behind it. The raptor had struck the broad side of the metal gear head-first in its blind dash after him, and in the moment it took the bewildered creature to realize its mistake and leap over the gear, Spaulding had brought himself to his feet and had lunged down and to a side, low-crawling, flat-bodied and bubbly-faced, beneath a pulley-brace which was anchored only inches above the inches-deep water.

The creature landed in the water only an instant later and tried to follow, shoving its nose into the brace's underspace only to see a furtive glimpse of Spaulding's leg and boot powering the man up and sideways on the opposite end. At that, the raptor was blinded by something loud and painful that exploded from the water in Spaulding's wake. The dinosaur yelped at the explosion of Spaulding's booby-trap grenade, leaping backward from the metal brace--startled, but only slightly injured by the blast. It lost no more than four or five seconds before pin-pointing Spaulding again and ambling over the obstacles between them.

Spaulding had climbed to a shoulder-high expanse of two-foot thick, tautly-strung, horizontal rope and was running on it to gain time, ducking beneath the objects and mechanisms hanging low and leaning sideways into his path. He was listening to his other soldier, Ross, who was firing his MP5 ferociously and grunting a guttural warcry over the radio. He could hear and feel the raptor finding his rope-runway, growling its invectives, and catching up quickly. Spaulding had just span himself about and had blasted at the raptor with his MP5 when he heard and felt and saw a million things at once.

First, he heard Ross scream--

"Colonel!"

--both through his radio earpiece and from the air--from somewhere behind him and also, somehow, ever-increasingly above. That was when he felt his horizontal rope-path lurching into motion beneath his feet, and he saw the raptor being tripped from its less-stabilized, rapidly scrambling feet. The raptor was then clipped and thrown away by the motion of the third thing working Spaulding into a terrified pause: The entire great underworks machine--which had once seemed a million years dead--was _resurrecting_. A seeming million gears, levers, pulleys, servos, rockers, bolted sprockets, ropes, and bearings--all moving, threading, feeding, flowing. He was in the guts of the living engine, feeling it revving back to life; throbbing, twisting, seemingly breathing; rolling, pulling, lifting, _working_. That next instant, while the rope he had been standing upon fully rolled away from beneath his feet, and just before he somehow latched himself to something-vertical-else in its stead, Spaulding suddenly understood how he could be hearing the source of Ross's screaming voice seeming to rise higher and higher in the machine.

Ross had grabbed a hold of a vertical, rising, pulley-powered ropeline, and he was ascending rapidly through the shadows and activities of the living underworks' high, heaving, ceiling. At the same time, swirling around Spaulding's ankles and having already taken control of the raptor who had slipped lower in the chamber, there was water violently churning, rising several feet per second, consuming the entire underworks bottom mechanism. The violent water consumed gears, and fixtures, and ropelines. It almost consumed _him_--had he not so instantly, so _reflexively_, grabbed a hold of a fast-rising rope that had suddenly begun rolling upward on its floor-to-ceiling pivots, just behind his shoulder.

* * *

Wallis' task was not going to be easy.

He had dispatched Kini, Doc, Cavanaugh, and even his prisoner (his "consolation prize") Rainy Hedgebrook on their mission to collect the ILC; but, in retrospect, he had to question his logic in doing so. That the native was behaving suspiciously seemed obvious even to Cavanaugh. Both had seemed to discern the ulterior motivations brewing behind the big, black, native's eyes--the note of treachery that seemed latent in his 'sudden enlightenment' of knowing how to solve their problems. It was one of the many times in the past twenty minutes that he had wished he had a clearer means of communication with the colonel.

To what extend did Spaulding trust Kini? How loyal did he really think he was? If there were to be an accidental weapons misfire that popped Kini in the heart, _twice_, how might it reflect upon Wallis come evaluation time? He had to imagine any death during his watch would reflect poorly, but he had heard nothing from the colonel since before the search had left, some five minutes before. Wallis was worried about his men. In the meantime, though, there was nothing more for him to do other than solve their ILC triangulation problem, using his platoon activity data device.

The PADDs were one of the most clever devices to come out of Project R&D. While it was true that the 'magic bullets' (as the guys called them) were undeniably the greatest innovation in military science ever; even by such an unfair comparison, the PADDs were still damn clever. They were rugged, miniaturized computer terminals capable of continuous interface with countless other PADDs, and even distant desktop or mainframe computers via encrypted microwave communication signals. Their signals could even be bounced or transmitted directly from satellites like satellite cell phones.

Through PADDs, not only could commanders instantly upload even the most complicated and graphically intricate information to their subordinate leaders, the PADDs actually enabled leaders to coordinate their unit activities with real-time location information from up-to-the-second satellite- based global positioning data--overlaid upon full-detail grid-maps that could be internally pre-installed or remotely uploaded. Through the PADDs, individual soldiers could not only be tracked and identified, one could actually continuously monitor their personal data, their equipment status, and even their readiness status. And the capacities of the PADD hardly ended there. Designed to be the consummate tactical communications and data tool, the PADD had been packed with dozens of contingency programs intended to help the soldier do everything from cracking enemy encryption codes, to converting commercial-frequency radio signals into secure communication channels, to offering first-aid information based on an input of plain-language signs-and-symptoms.

But one of the most useful functions of the PADD, as far as the Operations Force was concerned, had been its triangulation program. Before Wallis had arrived into their area of operations, First Squad had been tracking the ILC through the woods by a combination of complicated Interlocutor data and their PADDs' internal triangulaters. The process might have been more efficient had they been able to set the PADDs to triangulate the ILC's radio signal directly, but that had been an impossibility for some reason. As the egg-heads had explained it, the way that radio waves behaved in the valley was just so wicked-crazy that any regular method of radio triangulation simply wouldn't work. The actual process they had employed for tracking the ILC had been so technologically convoluted that Rainy Hedgebrook had apparently been able to misdirect the soldiers by dozens of meters simply by slightly changing the modulation rate of the ILC's data-- without altering its radio signal at all.

Wallis didn't pretend he understood the why's and how's of the Interlocutor, or even their Project's objectives, for that matter; but he did know the PADD. He had been well-familiarized with its capacities and limitations. He knew enough so that when they had told him about the bizarre relationship between radio waves and the Ingu valley floor, he had found it hard to believe. When he had arrived in the valley yesterday, while he and the other soldiers were eating dinner and waiting for orders from the Control Base, he had switched his PADD from the program the egg-heads had devised to the regular triangulater to see the radio signal's alleged misbehavior for himself. He was amazed at what he found--although the egg-heads were correct, as usual. The PADD simply couldn't do anything with the regular transmissions from the ILC; they were too weak, or too irregular, or too damned _something _that Wallis couldn't figure out. He had switched back to the egg-heads' program just in time to avoid having to answer his platoon leader's questions about why he, a squad leader, had been the last to finish eating his crackers and jam.

Since his personal experiment, Wallis had become quite curious about the why's and how's of the relationship between Interlocutor and the ILC. He had puzzled deeply over the strange fact that the PADD simply couldn't track the ILC, despite the fact that it was _designed_ to be able to do so, while the Interlocutor _could_ track the ILC--despite the fact that it _wasn't_. He realized that he had been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do a little in-depth investigating on his own. He had been asked to take over where the major had left off: Dealing with the Operations Forces' technological problems manually. He had been given permission from the colonel, and was backed by the imperative of the mission. His 'need-to-know' authorization had been thus provided.

Wallis' first subjects of investigation would be the Interlocutor's internal antenna systems. He was immensely curious about the nature of the Interlocutor's antenna--its being somehow capable of picking up transmissions that even the most sensitive antennas in military technology were unable to differentiate from electromagnetic background noise. What he found as he unscrewed and opened the panel marked **Caution: Antenna** was a closed case fastened to what was clearly the core of the Interlocutor's body. He knew that if he opened the Interlocutor any further, he might endanger the machine, as the inner panel was boldly marked 'HIGH VOLTAGE: EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION.' A subtle warning, to be sure. But Wallis still found it difficult to believe that he had actually opened the antenna array. He had found only a single closed case, and another mount for another component that was missing. The ILC must have mounted there. Except that it couldn't have been a mount for an electronically incorporated piece of equipment because it offered no electronic junction ports or sockets. The mount was nothing more than, literally, a _mount_: It was no more sophisticated-looking than the Wallis family sedan's coffee cup holder.

Knowing he was wasting his time, but aching with curiosity, Wallis quickly unscrewed the box holding the antenna component that hadn't been stolen. His lungs almost imploded with the yelp that burst from his mouth at the sight of the thing inside. For a second, he feared he might have awakened Tripp's still-slumbering form and had therefore committed murder--and suicide--by giving that blabbermouth something like this to talk about.

There were some secrets that even a soldier in Black Operations shouldn't know. A sure way to know that one had learned such a secret was to experience a moment of sheer incredulity at the discovery of a thing that should have been easily understood. Wallis had been _lied to_ about this Interlocutor: _What_ it is, and probably also _why_ it is. Inside of the antenna box, he had seen a coconut-sized crystal glowing furiously; glowing blindingly; glowing _maddeningly_. There was no such thing as an 'on-the-spot need-to-know authorization' that could apply to a discovery like this. It was something that _no one_ was supposed to see--no elected politician, no civilian, and certainly no 'disposable' special-missions soldier!

He didn't know what he was supposed to do. His loyalty to the Project and to the United States Government were not the question, and would never be put to question--of that much, at least, he felt confidently assured. His excellent record spoke for itself. But there was the extremely sticky question of clearance. No matter how loyal the holder of the knowledge, there was simply some knowledge that the Government must not let anyone outside of the permanent inner circle know. Maybe one day Wallis would have joined the ranks of that elite inner circle himself; but until that day, even the most loyal outsider must be, by definition, reckoned an unacceptable threat to national security. He knew what he would do with himself if he were in charge; and he wouldn't hesitate to do it. Not to Spaulding; not to Cavanaugh; not to anybody. Which was why he would keep this little secret to himself. His own private little nightmare to face in his dreams and keep secret during the day. No one would ever know what he had done, and he would simply carry on his duties as normal.

In the meantime, he had to find a way re-motivate himself. To restart his work on the location problem. Doing it the _conventional_ way this time--by simply hooking his PADD into in the conventional data interface terminals and isolating the ILC's conventional radio information. But, as he settled himself into an anxious perch upon one of the stage's stone steps, his peripheral vision was suddenly clipped by a far-away something's sparkling seeming-motion.

His nerve-wracked heart made his head snap toward the right, toward the inside of the chamber, where their lift had originally delivered them. He saw a pair of open, glistening eyes that had seen the deadly secrets he had seen--that had seen that he had seen them--and were sitting there accusing and staring and knowing. Wallis tried to look away from them, but he couldn't. They would be forever watching him, making it impossible for him to concentrate on anything else. They kept him paralyzed, utterly unable to get the impossible and deadly-classified image out of his mind.

A few moments later, anyone standing in the citadel near the eastern wall of the stuppa would have seen the heavy, dark-red head of a decapitated velociraptor plummet down from a third-story window and _smack_ against the stone street.

* * *

The water flooded up from his ankles to his hips, but he could still hear her breathing on the top-end of the tunnel; he could still sense the little cunt watching, aiming those mean little pistols of hers down the tunnel and potentially straight into his face--if he were to commit the foolish act of trying to avoid drowning.

When Sydwinsky had followed Lara Croft down into the hole in the underworks floor, he hadn't been sure what he was doing. He had just bobbed and weaved his way into the weird mechanical junk-pile that Spaulding had been crawling through, and had been listening to the colonel screaming his name and shooting at everything in barely-sight. He honestly hadn't any idea what was being expected of him. All he had known was that the goddamned dinosaurs were going in one direction, and he had a path open to him in another. That Lara Croft--the bitch who had just tried to kill him--was also running in that same other-direction was just a lucky coincidence. His diving into the hole after her had just somehow happened--he hadn't planned it nor even thought it through. He'd heard that hellish in-and-out whistle of the demon huffing and puffing somewhere behind him, and his feet had just obeyed, taking him oppositely.

Once he had been down in the bizarre underworld beneath the mechanical vomitus above, he had, at first, thought he had made a terrible mistake. The walls had been tightly confining; the rooms had been dark and dank and small. He had had one MP5, hanging clumsily from a strap around his neck; she had had two six-guns, held aptly, one in each hand. He had landed in a sprawl, unready, unaware. When he had seen the wild motion of her body in the same chamber still with him, he had almost panicked--he would have shot himself through his own feet given another full second of his terror. But in the end, it had appeared that the motion he had discerned had only been her ankles, disappearing down a shaft in the wall.

In fact, as it had turned out, there had been shafts in _every_ wall--and in the floor too, for that matter. The water, up to his shins in the chamber, had been pouring massively down the ground portal he had only just barely not landed in. The motion of the water had drawn his eyes down the draining tunnel, and he had seen that the passage was long and narrow--not too narrow climb through, but far too narrow to turn around within and fight. It was then that a possible plan had occurred to him. His orders had indeed been to capture Lara Croft alive; but he needn't capture her _whole_. If he could catch her sliding through one of these tunnels, he'd have a clear, straight shot, and she'd have none.

This was the plan which had dominated his hopes from that moment onward, while chasing her through the labyrinth--which he had subsequently discovered existed all around him. It was the hope that had fired his ambitions all the way until this seemingly final moment: Stranded at the bottom of a final upward shaft. He had followed her from chamber to chamber, sharpening his timing, improving his speed and stealth. He wanted to arrive in one of the chambers just behind her --so that he could get off at least two or three good shots before she could reach the far end of whatever confining tunnel she would be in. If he could wound her first, he was sure it would guarantee her submission when he entered after her. The bitch deserved to be put down. She needed a serious dose of humbling. She needed to get back a piece of what she had given to so many of his colleagues.

She believed that she run of the place. She seemed completely unaware that he was actually on to her--that he was tracking her. Stalking her like the wild animal she really was. He was driven by the thrill of the chase, the passion of the hunt. His timing had sharpened to the point that he could arrive almost down to the five-seconds after she had departed; but her little legs and arms were like those of the goddamned spiders' back in the drain: slippery, sneaky. He had needed to gain a few extra seconds--and he thought that he had, until his best-timed entry into an upward-sloping tunnel was countered by the sight of the goddamned girl herself, standing motionless in the chamber above! He had ducked to the side, and had been waiting, listening to her throbbing breath echoing in the tunnel while the water started flooding in behind him.

He was cursing himself, itching to move, prodding his own spirit for its failure to make him spin around the corner with his MP5 and take what was so obviously his. This was supposed to be his kill. Instead, he was feeling the water soaking through the cloth of his uniform; rising from his heels to spill over the tops of his boots; to soak the sensitive skin around his knees, his thighs, his groin. Finally, the water was up to his belly when his missing spirit finally made its belated appearance, and he whipped around into the tunnel opening, weapon first, seeing--

Nothing!

The bitch was already running!

How long had she been gone? With the water flowing around him, it was impossible to hear her footsteps! He started scrambling up the empty tunnel, dragging his wet, sticking, soaking, uniform with him, it clinging miserably to his body and annoying him terribly. Still, even his uniform's bitter cold couldn't dilute his hunt's searing heat. His hand and foot-holds slipped once or twice along the way, but his scramble up the tunnel was fueled by the furor in his heart--a heart that was on fire with heat of the greatest terror known to brave men: The fear of dishonor.

When he reached the top of the tunnel, the water was right behind him, rising after him, preparing to spill over the new chamber's still-dry floor to start the flooding, filling, process all over again. This realization chilled him as he reached the top and peered into the chamber. Lara Croft was still there, half in and half out of the tunnel leading out. He panicked! He couldn't go back--the tunnel was already overflowing--but those two pistols could come spinning out at any second!

He suddenly felt himself jump in a paroxysm--and then in two paroxysms--as her guns fired, once and then twice more. He nearly fell from the hole--but then he realized he himself had not been shot. His quarry was shooting at something at the top of that up-going escape-tunnel. She urgently began to move, to struggle up the passage--she was escaping! But, still in a tunnel himself, his MP5 was beneath his sloppy belly: In the time it would take to roll to the ground, find his weapon, lift it, and shoot, she would have escaped!

Primal instincts took over in any case. The thrilling anticipation of a close-quarters engagement evacuated him of forethought. He saw that her upper-body--her arms with their guns--was in that tight, tight tunnel, and he feverishly wanted to keep it there. When his body hit the wet stone floor, it didn't pause, or roll, or even reach for its suddenly-liberated weapon--it sprung into a dash. And when he remembered that MP5 again, it was only _after_ he had already crashed into her hind-quarters, pressing her into the tunnel, pinning her helplessly--where she couldn't move or dodge or struggle. His hot hunt climaxing, he struggled, abdomen against buttocks, to secure the submission of his prize. He placed the barrel of his weapon upon its slender back to assure himself--and it--that the game was finished; and he, Adam Sydwinsky, was the winner.

"Quit moving!" he screamed at the struggling animal, which still seemed to think it might somehow escape.

"Don't you hear that?" its struggling voice pleaded. "You're going to drown us both!"

And indeed, the water in the chamber was up to his ankles already. But it wasn't rising anymore. It was, in fact, already fizzling in a steady recession, settling back into the lower western chamber from which he and it had come. He wasn't going to drown. He had her cornered. Captured. He had won! He just had to convince _her_ of it.

"I won't want to kill you," Sydwinsky said, his voice shaking with excitement, his body chasing the prey-animal's, pressing his front into her rear and squirming to hold her tight. "But I will shoot you. Quite moving, or I _will_ shoot you!"

She stopped moving, and he felt her bare, bent hips hotly through the skin of his left hand; his right hand holding the barrel of the gun against the exposed white skin of the curve of her narrow back. He pressed still more deeply into her, feeling the heat of the hunt still burning, still driving--a primal excitement that he could only barely keep harnessed. Was this his kill? Was this his victory?

"Now," he said, "throw out those mean little pistols of yours."

She didn't immediately respond.

"Do it!" he shouted, hearing his excitement in his own voice.

"That may be a problem," she began to say after a hesitation.

But by the time she could complete her sentence, an entirely unexpected, unwanted, and shocking voice had invaded his sanctum, barking in his ear:

"_Syd!_" the colonel's voice said through his radio earpiece, "_status!_"

His reflexively, hyper-enthusiastic reply had been: "I've got her!"

"_You do?_"

But, by then, his prey had finished her sentence, saying:

"I'm stuck."

To which Sydwinsky instantly responded--by switching off his radio.

"You are?" he asked.

And suddenly he realized it wasn't the 'thrill of the hunt' that was making him so excited after all.

It was an instinct that was quite closely related; but, indeed, was not at all the same.

"_What are you doing!_" she exclaimed, a jolt of pure terror in her voice.

But before even _he_ knew what he was doing, he was hearing the sound of his heart screaming in his throat, and the sound of her voice _shrieking_ in the tunnel.

* * *

They hadn't even been sure that the key would work again: Shoved into a different slot, in a different room, for the opposite of the previous purpose. This time the key had been used to lower rather than raise a platform, and while none of the soldiers had been particularly concerned that the platform might not work, all were relieved when it did. None were relishing the thought of having to descend from one of the chamber's open windows via a rappel rope in order to carry out Wallis' foolish search--and certainly none of them were relishing the thought of making such a rope the only link between them and a return to safety should the dinosaurs suddenly attack. Luckily, it had seemed that the latter fear was unfounded in any case--as, after lowering the platform from chamber floor into the city, and even after a dozen minutes of patient, cautious walking, their leather-skinned malefactors had still shown no sign of their presence.

Yet, Doc maintained his vigilance; walking point, moving swiftly from building-side to building-side and acting on his every ounce of urban combat training and combat-tested instinct. The dinosaurs were every bit as frightful to him as any armed military enemy could ever be, and he had made it clear from the moment the group had touched the stone pavement that he had no intentions of letting _them_ see _him_ first. He led; and the others, obediently, tactically, followed--perhaps lacking his over-bearing caution, but certainly lacking none of his concern.

Cavanaugh walked with less anxiety than Doc, but found himself periodically, reflexively ducking low as he passed between the sides of the multi-storied ruins. It was as though he were trying to avoid snipers he knew couldn't possibly exist. Doc's paranoia was contagious. It had infected him despite his conscious disregard for it. Cavanaugh found himself aiding and abetting Doc's unnecessary over-caution again and again; covering Doc's forward movements and watching out for Doc's imagined enemies around carved stone corners and over empty lots and broken, ancient shacks. He never crossed a street, nor a shattered, empty clearing without first coordinating his movement with Doc's; and yet, he remained only barely aware that he was doing so; thinking that his caution was mainly due to his more conscious, erstwhile search of the ruins for the ILC.

Whenever he had a moment, Cavanaugh would peer into the cracks of passing broken walls, under shattered buildings' over-hanging fragments, under partially ruined floors--into any place Lara Croft might possibly have visited, perhaps vainly believing she had found a place where 'no one else would think of looking.' But he kept his quiet activities covert, hiding them from Kini, who was well behind them, walking without tactics, dragging Rainy by the collar with one of his muscular arms--the boy's toes only barely touching pavement. Cavanaugh didn't know what Kini's game plan was, but he tried not to make too obvious the fact that their procession through the ruins wasn't solely a matter of obedience to the native's explicit guidance. To Cavanaugh, it seemed obvious that it could lead only to unhealthy, unwanted complications if the fire-faced, sole-survivor-of-his-tribe were to suddenly realize that none of the others actually trust him.

And Kini didn't increase their faith in him when he stopped following them and approached a steep, solid, slightly-back-slanting wall that Doc and Cavanaugh had already passed and ignored. While the others paused and realized he was no longer behind them, Kini declared:

"Here."

"_Here?_" gasped Doc, breaking his tactical silence with all the subtlety of an exploded balloon. He turned from where he had been carefully peering around the edge of the next corner, and marched into and across the open street toward Kini and Cavanaugh, his weapon hanging meaninglessly at his side.

"Here," insisted the native.

"It's a _wall_, man," Doc said, sweeping the tall, flat surface with his eyes.

It wasn't even a building. It had no windows, and no doors--it didn't even have a flat roof. Though it was more than twenty-feet tall, the slightly slanting front-face was the only nearly-vertical surface it had. The flanking walls were even more inwardly-slanted than the front wall was, and the roof declined so sharply toward the ground behind it that it more closely resembled the shape of a highway on-ramp than a useable building. It's shape and proportions made its architecture seem entirely different from that of the rest of the city. There were no cubbies; no coves, no depressions, no gutters--there was no place to hide an ILC, or a black backpack.

"What?" asked Cavanaugh. "Is there something here? What are you looking for?"

But the native was busy walking along the base of the front-face, running his finger along the stone surface, searching, dragging Rainy behind him--ignoring his silent reluctance. Before Cavanaugh could ask the question again, more forcefully this time, his radio chirped in his ear.

"Cavanaugh," he replied.

"_I think I've got something,_" said Wallis' voice, sounding a little edgy; a little wild.

"Everything okay up there, Wallis?" asked Cavanaugh, sensing something strange in the lieutenant's voice.

"_Yeah, yeah,_" Wallis obviously lied. "_It's fine._"

But there was no time to pursue Wallis' problems just then, Cavanaugh decided. It was probably just stress. Even though he had seemed to have weathered the dinosaurs emotionally intact, Wallis was practically alone in that glossy-white tower, Tripp being almost certainly asleep by now. Solitude can do things to a psyche. He made a mental note to check on him later, and continued with business.

"What's up?"

"_I've got something,_" Wallis said. "_It's not much, but it could be a direction._ _I could be wrong, of course, but it looks like it's coming from someplace in the south of my position. Where are you?_"

"We're in the north, man," Doc said to Cavanaugh.

At that, it suddenly appeared that Kini had found what he was looking for, and it wasn't the ILC. He was digging his fingers into another key-slot along the side of the front-wall. He was removing his necklace-amulet-key, and he was--

"Hey!" shouted Cavanaugh, realizing it too late.

But by then, the entire front-face, all twenty-by-fifteen feet of it, grinding loudly, was lowering at a speed so slow for something so massive and so seemingly stone-age primitive that watching its motion made them feel mentally queasy. Only Kini seemed unaffected by the event, watching the gigantic slab slowly lowering; patiently waiting for the doorway to come fully open. Only Rainy was in aghast--among all of them, it was only he who had realized where this chain of events was actually leading.

"No! No, wait!" Rainy gasped, pulling against the immovable native's inflexible, iron grip.

By then the door had fully receded into the ground, and they could all see the long, darkish passage that descended into the pyramid floor; a tunnel--parallel, of course, to the slope of the sharply descending roof above the structure housing its entrance. Kini took Rainy and himself exactly two steps past the tunnel's threshold, just past the now-ground-embedded door.

"Hey!" Cavanaugh shouted this time; realizing, but still not quite believing.

But by then, Kini had reached his hand out of the passage and around its corner, where he pulled his amulet from the slot. After that, the door was again inexplicably moving--rising back into its former place at a speed somehow_ more_ swift than its descent had been. Before Cavanaugh or Doc could even think to forcibly intervene, the native and the boy were out of sight, both gone, out of reach--hidden behind a veil of two-foot thick, exquisitely carved stone.

* * *

Lara had never known what anguish was until that moment.

All her life, she had known men who would use her, exploit her, hurt her--even kill her if they could. But never--not even for one, single second--had she ever been simply _helpless_ to stop one of them. Never.

Not until now.

His hands were cold, and his pants were soaking wet where they brushed against the bare, naked skin of her unprotected legs. The machinegun had at first been pressed against her raw back, its metal barrel stabbing thoughtlessly through the scab over the painful avulsion that the spider-web had ripped from her flank. But the barrel had then gone away, replaced by a second cold hand to join the first--clutching, fumbling, for her hips with a strong, feverish clumsiness. But it wasn't until the hands shifted again that the purest, least unmitigated, most primal terror of her entire twenty-one years of life exploded within her. Her ankles were rigidly locked in place by his boots; her body was pressed into the tunnel as though by a brace of steel; her body's awkwardly-angled half-in and half-out predicament left her no leverage with which to struggle; and her arms were stuck in the tight aperture of a grate-frame which had reduced the diameter of the tunnel. She simply couldn't move. And when the cold hands had shifted, what they had done was yank down her shorts.

Before, when Lara had first seen the hinges of the grate that blocked her way through the tunnel, she had been pleased. Though it meant that the aperture through which she would have to squeeze her body was going to be even tighter, it also meant that the grate could be opened--that she would not be trapped in a flooding room. As she had shot the primitive locking mechanism with her pistols and severed its small locking tines, and had begun kicking her way into the narrow grateway frame, she had still been mentally patting herself on the back for her cleverness and luck. And that was when the attack came. A man had jerked her backward--trapping her arms in the grateway at her elbows. She was unable to pull herself up, unable to push herself back down, unable to roll in place, unable to direct her guns in her own defense--unable to do anything but feel the rape that followed beginning to take place.

When it finally dawned on her what was actually happening--_that_ it was actually happening--she found herself in a shrieking, hysterical fit--hurled past the tolerable extremes of human emotion and into a mortified nether-realm of person-as-mere-flesh. At some point between the beginning and the end, she lost all track of time. Of all thought. Of all human sensibility whatsoever. And, as she would coldly discover, the worst indignity of it all was going to be the way that her mind--tenaciously, stubbornly--would simply refuse to just _submit_ to the black-out that her soul would very early, very quietly, embrace.

* * *

"Syd?" gasped Spaulding. "Sydwinsky!"

But the radio had gone dead. He had said that he had her in custody--that he'd captured her alive-- but the fact that his radio went dead an instant later did not bode well for him. In any case, Spaulding was having his own problems. He had only called Sydwinsky to warn him about the great flood that was coming, vortexing its way down through the open spaces and into the underworks' reservoir floor.

Once Spaulding had reached the highest level his pulley-ride could reach from the reservoir bottom, he had found himself, for a time, struggling from awkward perch to awkward perch; battling just to stay just a few feet higher than the water rising steadily after him. He might have wished for the services of another rising line, but the machine had only moved for the first several seconds of the flood--having apparently completed its labors and hence reposed itself and its joints and workings for, perhaps, another thousand years of rest. In the meantime, while he wedged himself into a comfortable position high enough in the mechanisms to feel safe, Spaulding found himself patiently overseeing the process of the draining of the water, the life-blood of the underworks. He was fascinated watching its mighty currents winding their way away down the drains in the floor and walls.

The water had entered the chamber through the canals on the eastern and western walls of the chamber; gorging their banks. They had sprayed in from the north, consuming their southern out-portals and exploding into the center of the underworks. For a time, the water occupying the underworks had filled the chamber from wall to wall, engulfing the entire bottom fourth of the underworks machinery. The water had been continuously draining from the side-spills, from the southern canal passages, and through the open portals in the reservoir floor; but it had only been in recent seconds that the rate of drainage had begun to outstrip the rate of spillage, allowing the waters to gradually recede. The mechanism below him was a white-water mess of voracious whirlpools and rapids, leading from the reservoir in the north to the canals at the chamber's southern exits.

It was only after the water had begun to recede that he had begun to feel confident enough in his own personal safety to start asking after his men. Ross was fine--he was suspended safely in a position slightly higher than his in the mechanism. He had also, of course, attempted to learn Sydwinsky's status; but that effort had met with limited success. He considering attempting contact with the surface to hear if Wallis and Cavanaugh were having any luck with their mission. Any good news would have been a relief. Other than his own somehow being alive, the only clearly favorable development that Spaulding could report was the fact that there hadn't been any further signs of the goddamned raptors.

* * *

Helpless and despondent, Lara wondered if this was death.

There were two pistols in her hands; but she knew they could never reach her enemy.

But who _was_ her enemy now?

She had deadened inside. Succumbed to a numbness that had left her usual optimism feeling out of place: painful, hateful. While her mind wanted her to reach within herself and find that spark of being that made Lara Croft Lara Croft--that power, that _fire_--her soul only chuckled a cold sardonic chuckle. It laughed at her. It laughed at the person her mind wanted her to be, reminding her mercilessly about the _victim_ she really was. Though there were still the remote possibilities, and the heroic options, and the reassuring meanings that flashed optimistically into her mind, there was also something black and terrible that was always waiting there, like a flyswatter, to explode from nowhere to crush their buzzing, hopeful noise. Vainly preconceived assumptions that were once thought to be absolute truths were being churned and ground into so much wasted cud. They were being puked out along the wayside of her psyche, and they were being trampled by the gleeful demons possessing what little seemed to remain of what she had once thought to be a brilliant, invincible soul.

So who could be the enemy now? Was it the pain she was feeling? Was it the agent who was forcing that pain upon her? How could that be? The pain--the physical pain--was trivial. A sensation no worse than a moderate sports injury. She could file away the physical pain like an undesired moldy book upon a shelf; place it at safe distance from her inner conscience; numb herself to it; pretend it away. The pain came as a messenger, but it was not the message. And the agent behind the pain, he was a _speck_ (or at worst a specter), a flick of dust upon the cosmic sleeve. A stain. To be destroyed, to be sure; but destroyed only as befits vermin. He didn't even deserve the dignity of her rage.

The real enemy, the real pain, wasn't coming from the outside at all, but rather from within her own throbbing skull: Her own mind. The mind that kept igniting its painful lies in the otherwise pure darkness of her soul--as though a part of some foul prank to light up the tortured, finally admitted-to _nothing_ that was really inside of her. In a paroxysm against their putrid, searing lies, her immutable, blackened soul commanded that she _crush_ those lies; and, one after another, in an endless, agonizing succession, they _were_ crushed. Yet, no matter how violent the battlefield became, her mind just wouldn't give up. The lies kept coming, kept igniting, kept lingering, leaving grotesque smears where her soul splattered them across the walls of her cluttered, embattled, mercilessly chaotic psyche. Lies about told her how _smart_ she was; how _powerful_ she was; how _important_ she was, how _good_ she was….

Her _mind_ was the enemy.

But, unlike her lesser foes, it was an enemy that she could kill.

Maybe Lara's pistols were really working their way towards her head. Maybe she was only trying to comfort her cheeks against her arms by bending her elbows and drawing her shoulders nearer. She would never know. And she would never ask herself. The entire experience had been almost purely unconscious to begin with; and, after the bolt of rejuvenating lightening came that killed her demons and freed her still-living mind and body, those remnants of memory which lingered were hardly even apprehensible anymore. In a flash, she was instantly thrust from the netherworld of contingent existentiality back into the world of the living and breathing and fighting.

The lightening that freed her came in the form of an icy draught of water that whipped down from above--filling her tiny tunnel with so much pressure upon pressure that she felt her body shoved back from its weight. It kept shoving her and shoving her--even against the snug hold of the grate-aperture gripping her. Even against the bodily force of the sub-human bastard raping her.

She came out of the hole, and he fell back from her, and they both exploded from the uncorked- bottle the upward east tunnel had so suddenly become. The water spilled in after them so violently-- filling the chamber so instantly--that neither person had much chance to respond. While Lara rolled in physical and psychic agony on the ground, coughing and gasping, the man was retreating in terror--though not from the water, Lara could somehow tell. It took her an instant to realize how his machinegun was hanging uselessly behind him--while he stumbled with his pants around his clumsy ankles--and each of her own pistols were ready; in each of her own, somehow-forgotten hands.

The guns came up as Lara did, as she sprung from the whitewater that exploded and gushed around her--but her target was already going. Caught by the downward torrent spilling out to the west, he had dived into the tunnel and was instantly caught in the force of the stream. She came up from the exploding foam only quickly enough to see his ankles vanish; and she could get to the tunnel entrance only soon enough to see them vanish again on the other side. Her mind's self-efficacy restored, screaming the vengeful thoughts her battered soul had only let it whimper before, Lara was ready to dive into the passage after him; but the water had already begun to back up from the hole--the lower chambers, of course, having already been filled. She angrily belted her shorts back around her waist and prepared swim after her malefactor--to chase him down like the dog he was.

The only obstacle was the one--and then two--new faces in the western subchamber that had appeared instead of her rapist. Her panicking hands, as though themselves knowing how utterly useless her pistols would be against them, didn't fire; but rather reached back to the entrance to anchor her body before she spilled down the passage directly into the two raptors' waiting claws. The force of the water behind her was thrusting her toward them, and the raptors were coming up toward her, struggling for each foot of distance up the ten-foot tunnel. The same pressure that kept Lara locked helplessly in place poured down over them, resisting their approach. But, an instant later, all three were suddenly fully submerged--and all resistance was gone.

The raptors were the quickest to exploit the change--they being already in motion anyway. Lara had to spin herself in the water and kick away from the western wall, making desperately for the eastern tunnel up--praying she would have better luck getting through this time around. Her fevered legs kicked, and her pistoled hands stroked; and when she reached the entry to the tunnel with both of her feet somehow still unbitten, it only added more urgency to her fury. She grabbed the open grate and ripped herself through the tunnel, ignoring the way the slightly-too-small space scratched her shoulders and arms as she passed. Once through, she stomped the grate closed--on the faces of the smiling raptors below.

Its locking mechanism had, of course, been severely damaged. She could only hold it by wedging her arms against the tunnel walls and pressing it closed with her boots. The raptors were biting at the metal, kicking and thrashing at the water behind them, trying to scratch away the barrier holding them back. Their claws could reach around the bars, and they were instantly scratching at her boots; but their fingers were slightly too big to fit fully through, so their damage was only to the rubber and leather.

She could hold them; but obviously, she couldn't hold them forever.

Lara has trapped, unable to think quite clearly. She was becoming anxious and edgy, feeling the monsters digging at her toes; pushing at her heels. She had to escape, but she couldn't imagine how. The raptors didn't seem to care about breathing. They were not retreating from her. They were not looking for any alternate ways up. Perhaps their determination was desperation: They were not intelligent enough to go looking for another path. If that were the case, she knew it would not be long before their combined incredible strength, coupled with desperation, would overwhelm her single hold, crippled by exhaustion. She needed a next move. And when she then glanced up anxiously, expecting to see nothing, she saw instead her one and only hope.

She could see an open door. It was probably the same door which had opened to admit the water that had arbitrarily freed her, and now was subsequently drowning her. It was a big, horizontal door; similar to the one which had brought her into the subchambers in the first place. There was clearly no water spilling inward from it now: Its outline was crisp. It was an escape to air--but it was quickly sliding closed.

Lara was dominated by panic. It itched madly, trying to break her--trying to shatter her into pieces like a China doll dumped from a racing Jaguar. It wanted her to kick away from the grate and its tentatively-held prisoners and swim away without prudence. But something calmer battled that instinct. This other part of her had once been the stronger part, but had been severely weakened by a crisis it still could not quite admit to itself had occurred. This part of her wanted her to calculate the rate of speed at which the door was closing, and count the number of seconds it would take for the raptors to break through the crippled grate after she stopped reinforcing its crippled locks.

These two parts of Lara Croft battled for control. But the panicked half was the newer half, and was thus the least predictable. It was wilder, and it was _stronger_. Lara was itching in place, hysterical to move, bouncing anxiously. She wished she could strategically calculate her run; she wished she could wait until there was just enough time to reach the door and clear it before it rudely shut out her pursuers behind her. But she had tapped a full vein of this alien emotion called "panic", and it was surging through her. Before she could stop herself, her legs launched themselves on their own, and had started her kicking, vigorously, desperately, for the doorway above.

She could hear the raptors breaking down the grate barely more than a second later, and she could veritably _feel_ their lithe bodies smoothly displacing the water from their paths, slinking up like eels, gaining and gaining and gaining….

Lara exploded from the water with a scream, clasping the roving, horizontal edge of the door with both hands and whipping her body across its threshold and onto its moving top. She was spun around before she was even sure she was actually upon firm land, firing her pistols down into the space from which she had just escaped. She felt a rush of violence and determination truly unlike anything she had ever experienced before. The monsters' faces tried to follow her, tried to break through to the surface of the water, but the bullets were like a wall that crashed down against their noses, shoving them back down again and again and again. Their own frustrated determination increased, and their claws broke the plane; and their snouts broke the plane; and their eyes broke the plane--but every time, with a howling fury unlike any gunfire she had ever heard before, the bullets pushed them back. Her fingers were sizzling in their joints and sockets, and her mind was pounding in its unmitigated rage, and her shoulders where hunching--apprehensively symbolic of her struggle to stay above, to stay above, to stay above--

And to keep them down!

And suddenly the sliding door slid fully closed.

The vulnerable edge settled into its groove with a solid, jarring impact.

And the raptors were still on the other side--safely locked away, still trapped in the water.

And she finally stopped firing her pistols at the harmless, closed stone edge.

And she realized why her guns had been seeming to be howling.

And she realized why her face was salty even though the water in the reservoir had been fresh.

And she dropped to her knees.

And then to her back.

And then, for the first and last time in her life, she broke down and sobbed hysterically.


	22. Chapter Twenty One: Crucible

"_Open my eyes to_

_What I need to see_

_Am I you or _

_Am I becoming me?_

_Life from day to day_

_Turn another page_

_Christened in the rain that turns to rage..._

"_Bare bones! Bare bones!_

_I've been to hell_

_Now I'm back--Stripped to the bone!_

_I've been to hell_

_Now I'm back_

_And I'm taking all I need!_

_Bare Bones!"_

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:** **"**Crucible.**"**

The colonel was perched high in the outermost corner of the cube-shaped underworks mechanism. The rapacity and unpredictability of the floods which had been periodically sweeping through the chamber had caused him to decide against a return to the ground. Even though the waters had almost completely receded, he remained happily perched against the brace of a giant gear-housing, leaning forward into a nest of chest-high vertical ropes, over-looking the northern and western quadrants of the open chamber around him.

His position was high enough in the system of ropes and gears to offer him clearance from the floods while simultaneously placing him not so high nor so deeply embedded in the cube that he couldn't jump safely down into the waters of the deep moat which ran along the cube's foot, should there come a need for him to do so. He had learned that it was better to allow himself escape options than to rely solely upon a posture of hedged defense. Things could sneak through the machinery around him, invisibly and silently. He had assumed a position of over-watch, surveying the open chamber around him: The still-flowing (if tempered) canals on its east and west; the sealed, mysterious, twenty-foot door in its north wall. Until he had a better plan, the ground, of all places, seemed the least safe place for him to be.

In the meantime, he communicated.

"_...so, I've got the PADD looking over all of the data, not just the headers_," explained Ross through Spaulding's earpiece. "_If everything below seventy really is just Doppler shift, then every eighteen points or so should be the 'north', 'south', 'east' and 'west' axes. Right now the biggest count is on 'norths'. What do you think?_"

"Sounds good so far," the colonel said. "I just wish we'd thought of something like that a few hours ago."

"_There's still no saying if its working, sir,_" replied Wallis in Spaulding's earpiece. "_Cavanaugh and Doc are both searching the shit out of the north part of the ruins, and they haven't turned up jack yet._"

"She's a clever girl," the colonel said. "She wouldn't have put it someplace obvious. Tell them to consider the unconventional. If that city up there is half as complex as you say it is, there's probably a million places you wouldn't think you could get to that _she_ probably could. Tell them to keep their minds open."

* * *

"Will-do," replied Wallis, standing from the Interlocutor and the jumble of wires connecting his PADD to its side. "By the way, sir, have you given much thought to how you're going to get yourselves out of there?"

"_Negative_," said the colonel. "_But I don't want us getting ahead of ourselves. If you wind up getting really bored, you could start working on it for me; but right now my only concern is finding that goddamned girl. If your boys can't find the ILC up there, she's all we'll have. Otherwise, we're going to have to search this whole damned cavern ourselves._"

"But, didn't you say she was on the bottom when the flood hit?"

"_Aren't you a bundle of sunshine!_" the colonel moaned sarcastically. "_Yeah._ _Ross is out looking; but you're right. If he does find anything, it'll probably be a corpse_."

"And have you heard anything from Sydwinsky?"

"_Not a damned peep_."

"Sir? Permission to speak frankly?" asked Wallis, switching to a more contrite tone.

"_Yeah, sure_," replied the colonel, seeming to know what was coming.

"With most of the platoon gone like this..."

"_I hear you, Lieutenant_," replied the colonel, clearly already understanding the lieutenant's implied meaning.

"I didn't want to mention it in front of the others," continued Wallis, "but the enemy is more than just that girl."

He walked to a window and looked down into the city--and froze.

"_I know_," replied the colonel obliviously, "_but it wouldn't be as easy to call in the cavalry as you probably think. There'll be_--" The colonel suddenly stopped, as though somehow realizing that Wallis wasn't quite listening anymore. "_Lieutenant?_"

"I hear you, sir," Wallis said--though more quietly than before. More anxiously.

The two raptors were down on the city street below, sniffing their once-partner's decapitated head. As Wallis had arrived in the window, they had heard his voice and had looked up to stare their lone human malefactor in his suddenly terror-stricken face.

"I'm going to have to get back to you, Colonel."

* * *

Cavanaugh and Doc were moving through the ruined streets with paranoid intensity, tag-team advancing from corner to corner, using cover-and-move tactics more appropriate to high-intensity urban combat than a cold, systematic search. They thoroughly cleared every building, searching for traps and hidden occupants as well as the ILC. When they grunted their commands to one-another, to cover or to move, their speech was only slightly more audible than their troubled inner thoughts.

After Kini had left them, their search had dissolved from one of expectation to one of desperation; and then from desperation to despair. The city was huge, and their task seemed all but impossible. Their only clue was a cardinal direction, and their only security was what each man could offer the other--and they knew from vivid memory how poorly two men alone would fair against their unnatural, prehistoric, enemies--should they meet again on open ground. Their caution made the mission a slow-going one; though the men practically ran from location to location. They made every search thorough: They did not want to miss their chance to finish it at the earliest possible instant so that they might return to the high, airy safety of the royal quarters.

When they received the transmission from Wallis, its message was the very one they had least hoped to hear.

"_Guys_," said the lieutenant's shaky, anxiety-ridden voice.

"What is it, Wallis?" asked Cavanaugh, stopping in the doorway of what appeared to be a two-thousand year old general store. Doc also stopped, pausing his search of the store's ruined insides. Both men listened nervously.

"_Look, I need you back here. Now_."

"What's going on, _Lieutenant_?" demanded Doc, already bitterly suspicious.

"_They're checking us out_," Wallis shuddered, "_I think--I think they're going to try to get in._"

"Let me guess..." muttered Doc.

"Are they out front, Wallis?" asked Cavanaugh.

"_Yeah._ "

"Keep cool," said Cavanaugh, hearing the tension mounting in the distant man's voice. "How close?"

"_They're right in front of the building, right here_," Wallis said.

"How the hell are we supposed to climb back up?" Doc demanded. "That's the window side!"

"_Go around back and come up from below, like last time. You can still get in from below._"

"No we can't," said Cavanaugh. "Kini had the only key. We can't move the lift."

"_Then, I don't know!_" said Wallis--honestly, if uselessly.

"What about the ramp in the middle?" suggested Doc, pointing through the ancient shop window toward where the towering stuppa could be seen merging with the roof of the distant royal quarters.

"And climb down?" asked Cavanaugh.

"Yeah."

"Good idea."

"_Better hurry,_" said Wallis, his reaction to their solution sounding unexpectedly grim. "_It looks like they've already thought of that._"

* * *

The subchambers were obviously still submerged.

Ross searched the cube floor, looking for bodies. Looking for clues. The entryways into the subchambers where Syd and the girl had both disappeared were scattered throughout the floor of the tangled underworks mechanism, which was still hip-deep in water in some places. But at the bottom of every trap door laying open, the water was settled at just below surface-level, making the below-places seem to shimmer with darkened mystery; like an array of black, forbidden crypts. He had seen signs of neither friend nor foe in the open vats, and he didn't dare dive down into the subchambers himself for fear of joining his enemy and his comrade in what was, by this time, quite obviously, their watery graves.

He didn't expect to find Sydwinsky or Lara Croft alive in any case; he simply searched to be sure--to find a body or a sign. The exercise was obviously a pointless one, but after spending more than fifteen minutes huddled with the colonel like a frightened child, knowing they were hopelessly trapped in a sealed, empty room, even such a pointless exercise was better than no exercise at all. It was something to do. With the trap door entryways into the subchambers so easily discernible against the otherwise ragged-textured floor, the fact of there being an obvious, systematic way to search from portal to portal had provided enough purpose to keep Ross focused and hopeful. He hadn't been expecting to find anything worth reporting, let alone exploring; and yet he would, eventually, excitedly, find both.

First, he found a dry subchambers entryway with a vast, dry corridor running easterly and westerly beneath. But that wasn't what had been so interesting. After using his rope to climb down into the passage, and after finding his boots splashing in the stagnant, inch-deep water on its ground, he found that the corridor's floor was segmented with a staggered array of trap doors, all closed. But even this wasn't the interesting thing.

Each closed ground-door and its doorframe formed a well of inches-deep standing water. In one well, the water was obviously dotted with lingering masses of fresh, cloudy blood. Also, this same doorframe's frontal edge had been chiseled ragged by what must have been a barrage of heavy gunfire. And yet, as interesting was these details were, they would factor as only a secondary part of his excited future report.

The end of the hallway, far to the east, ended at a huge floor-to-ceiling door, open to someplace vast and floorless. When he passed through that doorway, what he found was a huge round shaft, plunging downward. The shaft was at least fifty feet in diameter, and it had been crudely chiseled directly from the otherwise solid base-rock around it. It was too big--too _deep_--to see its bottom. It might have been yet another meaningless (if spectacular) find, if there hadn't been--in addition to the hole itself--another equally remarkable artifice in the form of the spiraling stairway that wound its way along its inner shaft, forming a perfectly passable pathway downward, into the as-yet unplumbed depths.

The two finds--the door and the stairway--so close together, were what triggered his energetic call to the colonel.

But the colonel expressed neither the gratitude nor even the _interest _that Ross had expected.

He said: "_You mean you're underneath it? Get the hell out of there!_"

And then Ross, too, heard the rumbling flood coming.

And he ran.

* * *

Stripes had never seen it before when someone he knew didn't move. It was state of things for other creatures--for flutteries after they had been bitten or drown. For prowlers after they've been ripped to pieces with all of their tasty-juice spilled. But not for people like him. And certainly not for members of his pack.

He and Black had seen it when Bark had risen upward with Ugly Things on their noisy ride, and they had both been watching when the biggest part of Bark came back down, somehow without the top. After it had happened, it had taken a moment for Stripes to even recognize that it was Bark at all. There had been something troublingly wrong with his old comrade that made him seem oddly object-like, not like a person at all, but rather like something inanimate--like a tree, or a flat white-wall. The strangeness had left Stripes feeling vacant inside--not upset or even disturbed, but merely a little confused. He and Black had spent only a very short time sniffing and nudging Bark's bigger part; they having quickly become bored with it and moving on.

But the smaller part of Bark was different. It was a part of Bark that could not be simply forgotten and left behind. There was something in the fact of the feeling that it imparted to Stripes when he looked at it that made him stare and stare and stare. Stripes didn't like it. He found himself compulsively touching Bark's smaller part with his snout, and pulling back and reaching over to Black, and touching Black's bigger part, and then also Black's smaller part--feeling how big parts and small parts are intended, correctly, to run together as one. Black sometimes would do the same to Stripes, making Stripes feel uncomfortable all over again. The two were becoming unexplainably angry at one another, snapping and growling and feeling feelings that they couldn't find the proper actions to express.

This vague, weird, feeling continued within them until an Ugly Thing appeared above them in the high place. When that happened, all of their feelings came back into focus. Stripes and Black both instantly knew how to feel--and what to do about it.

They wanted to rip the Ugly Thing into pieces. They wanted to hear that Ugly Thing scream. They wanted to take off that ugly thing's small part their mouths and--

Before they knew it, Stripes and Black were leaping uselessly at the walls of the high place, gaining no ground, but bouncing their way mindlessly around the edge, scratching at the white-walls, digging at the white-walls, leaping, yowling, snarling hotly. Stripes thought that this was what his feelings were telling him to do; but, when he looked sideways instead of up for some reason, he found that he was wrong. He had just caught the scent of two Ugly Things who were on the _ground_.

It was _then_ that he knew the _best_ thing to do.

* * *

There was nothing quite like the liberty of madness.

The structure of rules, the boundaries of decency, the foundations of logic; they were all like the walls of a great glass hominidium, holding in their humans without the humans themselves even knowing that they are caged. Humans walk along the paths of clearly defined principles, rituals, and ethics, completely unaware of how they are following blindly where others had followed so many times before. Humans are like robots.

Like lemmings.

She wasn't like them anymore.

She was free.

There was a sense of freefall to it. A definite loss of footing. A vapory uncertainty of what might happen when she lands. Where she might land. How she might hit--and with what irreparable damage. She felt an uncertainty that might not have been tolerable even an hour before, but now it was a minor consideration; clinging somewhere to the back of her mind alongside such trivial sundries as social conscience and human compassion.

She wasn't a 'person' anymore. Not in the sense that other humans are 'people': As parts of an integrated, interacting, social _whole_. She was something else, psychologically. She was a part unto herself. She was finally all alone. Even her name was gone--that last vestige of social identity: Words that she may have once believed she 'owned' but in reality had been infinitely more useful to others than to herself. She was no longer shaped by consideration for the other humans with which she theoretically shared the world. She was something completely alien from them. She shared nothing with them anymore save their mutual capacity for language-shaped thought (and even _that_ skill had fallen into abeyance). She was feral; and her feralness made her movements smoother, her vision more penetrating, her ways more predatory.

_Immeasurably_ more predatory.

Their voices no longer held fear for her. Instead, they were a meaningless squawk. She no longer heard their humanity. Or perhaps it was not that the voices had _shed_ the humanity they had once had so much as she herself had lost her kindred ears to hear it. The other humans had become an alien species to her, and she was more like the beasts themselves than a human like them--feeling a wrenching, writhing, instinctual hunger. A hunger that came not from the belly (though that was the part of her that writhed), but rather from the mind. A hunger that went unquestioned for its all-encompassing possession of her.

The hunger was _hatred_.

"Ross? Ross?" her victim was saying into his radio, searching the receding flood waters which had recently resurged.

He was watching the waters surging back and forth across the ground below him. With the noise of the waters moving rapidly around him, and the noise of the parts of the underworks machine that had come alive again from the action, and the noise of his own voice crying into his radio, her victim was too distracted to sense her coming from behind.

"Ross? Answer me, damn it!"

When she descended upon Spaulding in the underworks mechanism, it wasn't thoughts of her demands or an anticipation of his compliance that animated her enthusiasm--that made her muscles bulge and shake with edgy excitement--rather, it was the enticement of blood. Human blood. Prey's blood. It drew her; tempting her, feeding her. Her silence was precise, her movements were crisp; and, in this, her state of perfect union between body and black, black soul, she made her move. Like a spider, or a cat, she launched herself around the last few gears and ropes that were in her way, and she pounced--whipping her coils around her victim like a striking anaconda.

Before the man could budge, before he could recoil or even shout, she had secured him to the ropes against which his chest had been leaning, and she had forced him to bear down over the gear's edge upon which his boots had been perched. She herself was coiled over his back, forcing him into a helpless fetal curl, crumpling him by the force of her weight, by the strength of her arms and legs, and by heat of her gun-barrels--one against the side of his lower back, and the other beneath and forcing upward his rough-shaven chin. She snarled her foul, feral breath over his eyes and his cheeks, and she indulged--_delighted_--herself in the feel of his racing victim's heart in his compressed victim's chest, now pressed so tightly against hers. Unable to contain her sadism (and hardly trying to) she exerted her maximum strength behind both barrels of both guns until the once-mighty man was whimpering in pain and sudden, unexpected, terror.

But, now that she had him, she wasn't sure what to do with him. She possessed no words to speak. She knew only that she wanted his suffering. She was feeding on it like a demon; exacting from him what he owed her in _pain_. If she had any morality left in her whatsoever, it was the conviction that divine retribution must be served. Though she was but an empty tool of hatred, she could feel the righteousness of her cause surging through her, empowering her feral muscles; fueling her vacant soul; further suppressing her muted qualms.

Level hatred had controlled her body when she had ascended from below the underworks mechanism. Level hatred had given her the measured calm to move patiently, silently, through the cube without noise or reckless haste. Level hatred had given her the intensity to keep her presence invisible from her prey, allowing her to move slowly, even when the seconds-past flash flood had come whipping over her earlier climbing places. It was level hatred that was giving her the power to indulge herself in her victim's pain without remorse, and it was level hatred that made her respond to Ross' erstwhile arrival with vicious, decisive, clarity.

"That was close! Colonel, I--" said the unsuspecting soldier, swinging down from a place higher on the western outside of the cube, not realizing that the body he was seeing distorted through the thick of the mechanical parts in-between was not that of a single person, but rather those of a closely-space pair. When the shots came, his words stopped.

But, in place of those words, there came no outcries from him. Only a puzzled, incredulous gaze--directly into Lara Croft's eyes.

With the gun that had been tucked beneath Spaulding's ribs, Lara shot Ross' right knee, and then his left knee, and then the fossa of his right elbow, and then the fossa of his left elbow. While the stunned, shaking, paralyzed man paused, his limbs somehow still holding him in place as though buoyed by incredulity alone, the fifth round came, directly into his heart. Ross went backward from the west face of the cube, his arms and legs out-stretched. He was dead before his spread-eagle body even hit the ground. He landed at the foot of the underworks cube, half-submerged in the undrained inches that remained of the minutes-old flood from which he had heroically escaped only seconds earlier.

"You cunt! You fucking cunt! You fucking cunt!" shrieked Spaulding, over and over again.

"What he deserves! What you all deserve!"

The voice seemed to come of its own will, from some autonomous place inside of her. The sound felt odd in her throat, as though her voicebox could only barely remember the words' proper shapes.

"All those people! The Indians! Bean Hedgebrook--!"

"Soldiers! Fanatics!" Spaulding wailed.

"You're the fanatics!" she raged. "Genocidal _monsters_ is what you are!"

"Who the _fuck_ do you think you are?" snarled the colonel, shaking--but clearly less afraid than enraged. "You conceited little whore! You blind, hypocritical fucking brat. Genocide? What--are you supposed to be some kind of fucking Mother Theresa, now? Who do you think _sent_ me here, you ridiculous bitch?"

"Shut up."

Her remorseful tone made him pause. Clearly, he had expected to hear surprise, not remorse--not _guilt_--in her voice. After realizing her weakness, his poise switched abruptly from one of feeble terror to one of brutal interrogation.

"You _do_ know, don't you?" he said, his stifled voice still somehow bellowing with indignation. "So go on and kill me then--won't Grampa be proud!"

"Shut up!"

She wrenched her barrels so much more forcefully into him that the skin beneath his chin split open a centimeter and bled--his ribs compressed so far that one nearly broke. He winced and bellowed in pain, but kept up the assault.

"Do you know what the real difference is between you and me?" he managed to gasp. "I know what I'm doing. I've got a mission. You're nothing but a misguided little tramp who doesn't know she's shitting in Grampa's garden."

"Shut up," she said.

"This isn't one of your fucking games," Spaulding said. "You need to stop and think about what you're fucking up. After me, who do you think it will be next? Have you even thought that far?"

"Shut up!"

"Can you kill your Uncle Corbin, Lara? Can you kill your grandfather? What about all of your aunts and all your fucking cousins, and all your family's closest fucking friends--because if you kill me, it's _them_ you'll be fighting next."

"That's not true!"

"Oh, come on," bellowed Spaulding, "don't be such a fucking baby! Of course it's true. Who the hell do you think we are? The government? You give up quietly, and you inherent the world. You kill me, and you're going to have to kill your entire fucking family--every one of them--every friend you ever had. Is that what you want?"

"_No_," Lara seethed, speaking only to herself--increasing her pressure behind her pistols, fighting to maintain the intensity of her resolve--knitting her teeth, willing herself into action, preparing to carry out her threats.

"You don't have the commitment for this fight, little girl," said Spaulding. "I'm a soldier. I have a cause to fight for. You don't even know what side you're on! You need to give up, _now_, before you end up killing more of the people you care about. "

"No one else will die," Lara seethed, "no one but _you!_"

"Oh?" the colonel said.

It was then that Lara realized what her hyper-focus on her victim had caused to her overlook. The door in the northern wall of the underworks chamber was standing open, with an inclined corridor leading out behind it. Standing in the doorway there was a dark native holding a string connected to the neck of a little boy who was trembling in the threshold, on his knees.

"Rainy!" cried Lara, feeling her insides ignite as though from a nuclear blast, burning away her inner blackness with an emotional maelstrom that would take another several seconds to sort through. The sound of the boy's tiny voice screaming her then-unforgotten name further intensified the fire:

"_Lara, please..!_"

The boy's plea was stunted with a sharp kick from Kini's boot.

"Alright," sneered Spaulding contemptuously, "Go ahead and kill me, Lara. Let's see what you've got."

"Let him go!" Lara demanded, fighting to summon back the soul-possessing predator who had inconveniently just set free her soul. She wanted to threaten the colonel's feet, or his face, or his testicles; but, instead of threats, her damnable mouth automatically pleaded: "He's just a boy!"

"_Ross_ was just a boy," hissed Spaulding. "Twenty-three years old, just married, a kid on the way, his life still ahead of him--!"

"Let him go!"

"Waste him, Kini!"

"I said _let him go!_"

"Or you'll _what!_" snapped Spaulding. "You'll what? What will you do, Lady Croft? Have you got it in you to stand here and watch Kini smear that kid's fucking guts all over the ground? Do you? Can you stand here, _knowing_, and _watch_ that happen? Can you live with that? Can you _really_ take this war to its natural conclusion? Use that over-achieving brain of yours! Can you kill Rainy? Kill Corbin? Kill your fucking grandfather? How far can you take it? Kill me, Lara! Kill me! You know, you're right: I'm a monster. But only monsters can beat monsters, Lara. Are you really ready to fight me? Are you ready to _become_ me? Waste him, Kini!"

"No!"

"No what?"

"Don't do it!"

"Don't do what?"

"Don't kill him!"

"Why not? Do it, Kini! Do him now!"

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

"Or what?"

"I'll..."

"You'll _what?_"

"I..."

"What will you do?"

"I'll give up."

"Then back the fuck off!"

The instant Lara withdrew her weight and strength from him, the soldier span and disarmed Lara of her pistols in a move so speedy it was doubtful if Lara could have stopped him even if she had tried. As is was, while the weapons came from her and went flying away, she regarded him suddenly as harmless; not even watching while her pistols disappeared down the slope of the drain-ramp which fed the chamber's fast-flowing west-wall canal.

From sadistic demon, she had been instantly reduced to harmless captive. She had been broken. And yet, strangely, she felt as though she had been liberated. Staring into the angry man's eyes, she had expected to be intimidated by what she would see there, now that the tables had been reversed. Yet, she felt no fear. She made no move to exploit her new inner advantage, but the nature of the playing field had been suddenly made clear--_balanced_. For Lara, her role was perfectly crystallized: She knew now--somehow _for certain_--that she was the good guy, and Spaulding was the bad. The temptation to follow his ways was gone. Her brush with evil had ended, and her soul was soaring--the good revived and intensified. The darkness inside of her had not only been vanquished, but had somehow been transmuted into a more pure beauty than had even existed prior.

As though to punctuate her victory, even while Spaulding tried to order:

"Alright, now let's start down _slowly_"

Lara said: "You're wrong. I have a cause, too"

and she started climbing past him--toward the northern air beyond him--and she _leaped_ from the cube; landing with flawless four-point form upon the open stone chamber floor, some forty feet below. Spaulding was left behind, speechless and flabbergasted, while she slowly rose to her feet and squared off against Kini and Rainy.

"Qawalynn," said Kini, tugging threateningly on the slender rope in his hand.

Rainy's hands were tied behind his back, and Kini's rope was attached to the pin of a hand grenade which had been duct-taped to the side of his neck. The dark green, incredibly tough tape had been wound around and around the deadly, fist-size explosive and the boy's neck until the tape was so thick that it looked like a hasty cervical collar. Rainy's eyes were red, streaming with tears, and his voice was choked off with sobs. It was a wonder he could cry out of her name at all, given the soul-crushing duress of his predicament--not to mention his near-asphyxiation by Kini's collar around his tender young throat.

"I want the boy, Kini," growled Lara. "Let him go."

"You destroyed my people," growled Kini. "You are false, and I will prove it."

Kini threw away his MP5, and drew his knife.

"Kini! What are you doing?" echoed the colonel's far-away voice--neatly ignored by all parties on the ground.

"I do not understand what you want," said Lara, "but for the boy's sake, I will honor your challenge." Lara reached for the knife strapped at her leg. She unfastened its hold-down snap, and she drew her weapon, laying down her condition for their duel: "Drop the cord, Kini."

"Gladly," said the seething native; and he, indeed, dropped the cord--but yanked it hard first.

Rainy burst into hysterics as though the cord had been connected to an 'on' switch. He cocked his head sideways and somehow creased the thickly laden tape, miraculously catching the spring-loaded safety-lever of the grenade between his shoulder and his cheek--just in time to prevent its unpinned safety catch from springing away. He ducked away and collapsed, his legs apparently becoming worthless beneath his quivering, panic-stricken weight. Against a wall, he writhed and twisted, clearly feeling the handle-shaped safety-lever trying to work its way clear--as though the grenade itself were struggling against him.

"_You bastard!_" Lara shrieked, charging.

"There!" shouted back Kini, advancing, demonstrating hardly any concern about the shrapnel-coated explosive he had just set to detonate no more than three meters behind himself.

"_Help...me..._" whimpered Rainy, desperately--using the force of his legs to press his head into wall to lock the grenade between his face and his shoulder. But it was clear from his ever-shifting struggle for position that his efforts were failing, and that it was only a matter of time before the smooth, metal handle would slip past his sweaty, oily, cheek and spring ominously away into the air.

Lara moved to assist Rainy, but Kini blocked Lara's approach--predicting her attempt to run around him. Though she tried to circumvent him again--and again--he switched his position, again and again, so that no matter how she tried to approach Rainy, his body was always in the way. Kini and Lara began a strange dance of approach and retreat, with Lara always roving toward Rainy, and Kini always in the path.

"Through me," he said--he demanded--"through me, Qawalynn!"

"You bloody bastard!" she gasped at him, closing the gap between them and attacking with her knife.

Kini responded joyfully, and the two sliced at one other, both missing their targets in a glittering melee.

"Goddamnit, Kini!" bellowed Spaulding from the mechanism, clearly realizing that the fight could have no outcome which would be acceptable to him. He aimed his MP5.

"Cut it out!" he shouted.

They responded with yet another bloodless flurry of knife-play.

The colonel unleashed a dozen hot rounds on the ground near their feet. If he had been hoping to win their attention, he had been successful. Both Lara and Kini span to face him. Lara threw herself clear while Kini dived for the machinegun he had earlier discarded.

"Drop it, Kini!" snarled the colonel, but Kini was already up and firing.

By then, Lara was dashing.

Even while the two exchanged gunfire, Lara was running at Kini. And then tumbling at him.

She knew he could see her in his peripheral vision, coming toward him; but she also knew he wouldn't immediately react. She knew he would only care if she tried to run _around _him. She knew he would never expect her to flip-flop into a somersault that vaulted her completely over his head and beyond him.

Kini had no idea what she had done until it was too late. To turn and face her then would mean turning his back to the colonel--whose shots continued to rain unabatedly. Before he could act against her again, he would have to finish off his former commanding officer. It gave her time. She rushed to Rainy's aid, slicing his wrists' binds with her knife. She all but hurled him to his feet.

Rainy's freed hands went instantly to the grenade to clench the safety catch closed, but there was no time to remove the device itself--Lara was dragging him too quickly, too directly, toward the steadily rising wall of the closing northern exit. Even while Kini was directing a furious, extenuated spray of gunfire up into the underworks mechanisms, Lara was lifting Rainy up the face of the northern door--where she shoved him through the steadily closing three-foot (and then _two_-foot) gap that remained open at the top. By the time Kini turned--after Spaulding had taken a prolonged series of rounds fully into his chest and had come falling, splashing, into the moat--Lara was going over the wall herself.

The one-foot, sliver-of-a-gap that she had left behind herself was fully sealed no more than a second after she had slithered through it.

* * *

Tripp might have slept through the entire thing, but Wallis wanted every one--every _gun_--up and fighting.

"Wake up, Tripp!" he snapped, shaking the slumbering man.

"We--What?" mumbled Tripp, fighting to peel his dry, exhausted eyelids back from his dull, exhausted eyes.

"Game time!"

"Shit!" he gasped, rolling across his heavy thighs to his cold, numb knees. He reached his lethargic hand behind his load-bearing belt to remove his 9mm pistol--seeing his MP5 where it lay useless, its barrel bent, still on the entry lift in the eastern wing of the quarters. He struggled to his feet with Wallis' assistance, and he reactivated the headset hanging from his ear.

"_...here we come!_" cried Doc's voice in his ear, and suddenly the man's shape cut across the striated white-stone beams that formed the royal quarters' high-ceilinged roof. Doc, and then Cavanaugh, were both leaping from the stuppa-top in the north to the roof of the royal quarters, skipping the lower adjoining structure that bridged the two buildings in the east.

Through the one-foot slots between the beams forming the ceiling, Tripp could see their bodies only imprecisely; moving like shadows, twenty-feet above. They passed over the chamber's western wall and lurched north, hardly slowing at any point along their dash. Tripp could sense their anxiety; and, though he was still uninformed of the nature of the danger, he reflexively turned north--the way Doc and Cavanaugh's shadows had just come--to face the foe he knew must be following. While Doc and Cavanaugh feverishly worked to accomplish something in the west that Tripp wasn't watching, the two raptors leaped across the same northern gap, and were suddenly casting over Tripp's face precisely the same types of shadows that Doc and Cavanaugh had. They were stalking Doc and Cavanaugh across the same roof.

Instantly, Tripp and Wallis, and at least one of the two men on the roof, responded to the enemy with gunfire. Tripp and Wallis blazed at the part of their underbellies which was exposed between the white stone slats. The monsters seemed only barely affected by the attacks; perhaps budging slightly in one or another non-purposeful way while otherwise charging the men with them on the west edge of the roof.

Doc and Cavanaugh were yelling incomprehensibly at one-another until Tripp could hear Doc yell "Go!" and suddenly Cavanaugh appeared in one of the western windows, landing on his feet in the white-stone window pane, and clinging to a hanging black rope that Tripp hadn't noticed had been descended. While Wallis grabbed the unstable soldier outside of the building and yanked him in, Tripp watched, firing at the black shapes above--which were ferociously charging the lone human still up there with them.

As soon as Cavanaugh achieved footing on the inside of the building, his bullets joined Wallis' and Tripp's, and the three blazed upward in Doc's defense. But their efforts were unneeded--as Doc's body dropped clear an instant later--he swinging himself out of the charging monsters' reach. They watched Doc swinging on the black rope, down from the roof; arcing several meters out from the building and swinging back in through the window. He landed inside, on his feet--as though he had launched himself from a playground swing-set. Instantly, his machinegun joined the others'; and, together, they blazed at the beasts above.

The monsters, seemingly inspired--but undaunted--by the humans' display of heroic agility, followed suit with exploits of their own. The shape of Doc's body in the window was almost instantly followed by the brown-and-black-striped shape of a raptor pursuer. The dinosaur had stepped off from the edge of the slotted roof, twisting-about its scowling, ugly snout in mid-air so that it fell with its belly against the wall. Though it had been unable to descend using the ropeline that the humans had used, it still managed to wind its way into their window by reaching out its agile hands as it fell past, capturing a hold upon the window pane's broad bottom edge--where it could yank itself back up and into the building.

The men responded equally ferociously, and at point-blank range. They concentrated their machinegun and 9mm fire into such a relatively tiny target on the monster's chest that the force of their weapons' bursts sent the beast hurtling backwards into the air as through struck by a god's invisible fist. They watched a moment in earnest while the animal's writhing, screaming body struck the hard, cold stone, many meters down and distant. The humans were stunned to see the beast land uninjured. It leaped back to its feet and howled at them in rage. Their moment of incredulity at its unbelievable toughness almost caused them to forget about the second beast, which was still on the roof--and was coming down in the same manner as its partner.

The black beast passed by a distant northern window in a blur, catching Doc's attention just as the other men had leaned farther to the west to watch the striped one hitting the ground. Cursing belligerently, Doc raised his machinegun at the creature when it appeared in the frame, but neither his fire--nor the fire of the other men, when they joined him a half-second later--was enough to produce a similar force to that which had repelled its partner--they were too far away to achieve the same accuracy. The monster was about to finish pulling its body up from below the window ledge and leap into the chamber when Doc's weapon dropped to the floor, and his hands moved like lightening, and he sent a hand grenade safety-lever dancing away from himself with a metallic ping.

While the other men leaped behind the corner between the east and west quarters, Doc waited one, and then two seconds; holding the grenade and waiting to throw. Just before the beast could finish pulling itself through the threshold, Doc hurled the grenade and dived for cover alongside his fellows. The explosion shook the chambers a half-second later, before it had even reached the dinosaur. Its power swooped beneath and around the monster's unsuspecting form, buffeting it backward and throwing it clear. It went down screaming in pain and rage, its body trembling where shrapnel had bloodied its seemingly impenetrable hide.

As though reflexively, the humans, all uninjured, leaped up and dashed to the north-west corner of the room to gaze out at their newly grounded foes. Both monsters were upright and apparently uncrippled. And they seemed even more angry than before. Worst of all, they seemed to remember precisely how to do it all again. The raptors were dashing, side-by-side, toward the north, along the wall of the stuppa, back toward the beginning of the gangway.

"Get this place wired!" barked Cavanaugh. "_Move!_"

* * *

"Let's get this off of you," said Lara, helping Rainy to his feet before the door had even fully sealed above their heads.

"No time!" shouted Rainy, his cheeks still wet, but his eyes already drying. He held the grenade's safety-catch with one hand while using the other to ward off Lara's premature attentions. He was already running when he added: "He's got a key!"

"A what?" Lara asked, following.

"He can open the doors!" Rainy said. "Let's go!"

The corridor was white-walled and arch-ceilinged; a product of a highly refined architectural aesthetic--at least by comparison to the underworks' rough unfinishedness. There were variously shaped and sized swooping, intricately interlaced patterns decorating the walls and ceiling. This refinement, together with how the hallway extended gently upward, impressed her with the definite sense that they were climbing from a place of filth and toil toward one of greater civility and charm. She had no time to appreciate the artistry, however.

"Where are we going?" asked Lara as they ran.

"The top of the city-thing," Rainy said.

"What?" replied Lara, a cry of protest in her voice.

"It's our only chance!" said Rainy. "The water's calm on the far side, and the soldiers left their boats there."

"No, Rainy," Lara said, "our way is down."

"Oh, don't give me that shit now!" Rainy protested.

Clearly, he wanted an explanation; but she didn't have one. All she knew was what she _knew_:

"There's nothing up there for us now," she calmly explained. "Nothing but death."

"Listen," Rainy demanded, "we'll take the boat and we'll _find_ a way down!"

But Lara was insistent.

"No," she said, slowing.

"Then what do you suggest?" demanded Rainy, clinging feverishly to the safety-catch.

Lara trotted a little farther up the hallway before responding. She had spotted another sliding door, recessed several feet into the right wall. It was closed.

"What about this one?" she asked, stopping, spotting its key-slot, and moving forward to examine it.

"What are you doing?" Rainy gasped.

But by then she had unsheathed her knife and was experimenting with the lock mechanism, fishing for a way to trigger the door to open. Long before she had given him any sense that she had neared success, however, Rainy could hear the door to the underworks chamber behind them slowly cranking back open again, grinding, stone on stone.

"Come on!" Rainy whispered, seeing the top of Kini's distant head appearing as the door dropped to admit him into the corridor. "Hurry up, Lara!"

"It's not working," Lara admitted. "But there's more than one way to pick a lock."

She clutched the grenade strapped to Rainy's neck, tugging at it until a gap opened between the tape and his skin. She inserted her knife and began roughly cutting it loose.

"_Ouch!_" protested the boy, "leave me _some_ skin!"

"Sorry, Rainy," said Lara, peeling the grenade clear, along with several inches of sticky tape.

She warned Rainy: "Run," and placed the grenade over the keyslot, using the sticky tails of the tape to hold it in place. Glancing once to see that Rainy was clear beyond the door's recess, and again to see how Kini was passing through the underworks doorway and was entering the passage with them, she released the safety-catch and leaped clear of the door herself.

The explosion was very loud, but the squeal the door itself began to make immediately afterward was almost as loud as the explosion had been. The door screamed while it jerked in its place, rocking until it slipped crooked in its frame, jerking, oscillating, up and down in place; rising neither fully back up nor falling significantly farther down. Between the top of the door and the ceiling of the doorway, there was suddenly an awkward one-to-two foot gap which twitched and spasmed with an ear-splitting squeal.

Neither her nor Rainy were injured, but Kini was now very close. Lara was quick to boost Rainy up and over the quivering half-wall, but she hesitated to follow herself. The large native was closing on her with the same grim, level, determination that she had become accustomed to seeing on his face ever since their first reacquaintance atop the smoking stuppa chimney top.

She would eventually be forced to face him, she knew. As she watched him approach, she considered how much easier it would have been if she had simply taken the easy route and thrown the grenade at Kini rather than using it to cripple the locking mechanism. She might have injured herself and Rainy in the closed and narrow hallway, but the ordeal would have been over: Spaulding gone, Kini gone--and Kini's body possessing a key to the doors, if Rainy was correct. But she had to know: What is _Qawalynn_? She would have to hear what he had to tell her, even if it meant winning his thoughts from him in battle. Somehow, she knew that this fight was not only an unavoidable part of her own destiny, it was Kini's birthright; and she no right to deprive him of it. The only caveat had been Rainy's safety. At that moment, therefore, with Rainy safely out of the way behind a huge stone wall, Lara was tempted to finish things. Sorely tempted.

And of course, Kini appeared to be only too happy to oblige her.

Unfortunately, whatever was on the other side of the wall with Rainy had another plan entirely.

* * *

Spike hadn't drown.

It was the longest he had ever been under water, and his insides had been screaming for the air by the time he finally found some; but, somehow, he had guessed that his best chance was to follow the light, and the light had led him back into air. Being alive at the end had been almost as big a surprise as the air itself.

Miraculously, even Whistler had survived--though probably only by following him.

It had been a difficult swim. After making the mistake of passing on a closer ugly thing in favor of a farther away but better-feeling ugly thing, the two had found themselves trapped in an inside-place completely beneath the water. The better-feeling ugly thing's noisy pain had rendered Spike and Whistler helpless to get out of the water after it, and as a result it had been a very long time before they had been able to find air again. Spike hadn't been sure at the time whether he was more relieved to have found air than annoyed at Whistler for what simply _had_ to have been _his_ dumb idea to chase after that better-feeling ugly thing in the first place. From now on, Spike intended to approach things more simply and more directly.

In their present situation, for instance, Spike imagined that Whistler was probably considering climbing over the loud wall in the far end of the dim place where they were; but there was a perfect good ugly thing on their _own_ side of the wall. It was a smaller morsel than what they would probably prefer, but it was certainly a start.

And if Spike had learned nothing else, he had learned that it was smarter to not be quite so greedy.

* * *

By the time Lara had climbed over the door, the raptor had already pinned Rainy to the ground.

It was a large chamber, though certainly smaller by far than the underworks--and darker than the underworks as well. The ceiling was no higher than the hallway whose door Lara and Rainy had entered by, and it was much darker. Lara instinctively realized: Smooth-walls equal brighter ambience; and these walls were the darkest spots in the room--being how they were not walls at all, but rather were small prison cells; with barred, metal doors on swinging pinion hinges. There were at least twenty cells, arranged around four twenty-foot water reservoirs which were, in turn, arranged in the shape of a square at the center of the chamber. Through open passages where the chamber's corners should have been, adjacent and identical chamber-sections could also be seen, each with its identical reservoirs in its center, and with identical cells arranged all around. This was clearly the pyramid's dungeon--and its dragons had preceded them.

Lara--though armed with only a ten-inch knife--suffered no hesitations. She leaped from the top of the door and charged at the beast beneath whose whistling mouth and clawed feet her young friend struggled helplessly. With all of her strength behind her, plus the inertia of her dash, she leaped at the beast and ripped a punter's round-kick into its throat--her incredible power raising the beast a full foot in the air and tossing it the precious inches backward that Rainy needed to roll and scramble clear. While the creature struggled to regain its unexpectedly lost balance, however, its fiendish partner swung around to attack Lara from her unprotected side. But Lara kept her focus on the first animal; and, even while Rainy ran, and the second beast lunged, Lara threw another dynamically focused leg-strike: A ferocious spinning back-kick that lifted the raptor again into the air before it could even regain its balance from her first attack. It splashed down in the reservoir water behind it, and it sunk out of sight.

Meanwhile, however, the other raptor took its advantage. It leaped at Lara--its arms raised, its finger-claws bared--and it tried to slice open her body from head to toe with both hands. It was too late to jump out of the way, and Lara didn't hope to do so in any case. Instead, she let the beast's own imbalance and velocity carry it past her as she span in the direction of its motion, slipping just out its reach. As she feinted, only narrowly dodging its claws, she clasped the back of its left hand with her right palm and twisted it around behind the creature as far as its anatomy allowed--plus a considerable distance extra--while simultaneously slicing open the creature's neck with her knife. A human would have been dead an instant after such a counter-attack--bleeding profusely from the carotid arteries--but to Lara's cold consternation, her razor-sharp blade had only barely penetrated the first layers of its skin; and, when it recovered from its face-first spill into the ground, it was more outraged than injured. Taken aback by the utter futility of her effort, Lara paused a near-fatal moment while the invincible beast leaped back to its feet, span around, and was almost able to attack again.

Shots came from Kini, and they blasted the beast unexpectedly from its other side. The dinosaur, pushed off-balance, stumbled. It tripped over its own gangling bird's legs and joined its partner in the reservoir depths. For a moment, the chamber was quiet--and Kini approached.

Lara was almost caught unaware: She was watching the water, certain the "extinct" beasts would return any second to continue their inter-generational dinner party. It was the last thing she expected when Kini suddenly tossed away his precious MP5 and drew his knife to attack her again. His blade-swing was decisive and sudden, and only _barely_ avoidable. Lara threw herself clear. Suddenly, she was on her rear on the floor, gaping up at the still-charging native, gasping incredulously.

"What--?" Lara gasped, daring an emphatic glance back toward the raptors. "Are you crazy? They're coming back!"

And as though having been waiting to prove her point for her, the two raptors then chose just that moment to emerge from the depths and crawl back upon the dry stone. They were both behind Kini as he pressed Lara forward, standing above her while she drew her prostrate body across the floor, backward from him. Lara watched incredulously while what she now counted as _three _wild beasts approached.

"What do you fear more?" Kini asked coldly. "That which can kill you? Or that which cannot?"

Whatever he meant, he thought it funny--and he began to cackle coldly about it.

"You _are _insane," Lara murmured.

Kini smiled, as though in affirmation.

When the first beast attacked, Kini's response was smooth and guileless. When the dinosaur's head came just within reach, preparing to strike--just as Kini should have been its victim rather than its assailant--the big, dark man span like finely-harnessed lightening and plunged his knife into the beast's neck, all the way to the hilt. As though more sublimely confident than Lara could fathom any human could be, Kini then abandoned his sunken knife and turned away from the skewered creature, before it even seemed to realize what had just happened to it. While Kini sneered an evil sneer and stepped toward Lara, the creature took another step toward Kini--then paused, stumbled, and, finally, collapsed in pain.

The other raptor, however--not realizing what was happening to its partner--continued to pursue its part of their tag-team attack by running past Kini and Lara and taking after Rainy--who was then fleeing desperately toward the south-west gap between cell-block chambers.

Lara was thinking to follow (to escape from the crazed madman, Kini, in any case); but, as she leaped to her feet and tried to spin to run, she felt Kini's presence fall over her in a flash. She sensed his huge violent hands gunning for a claim on the back of her slender neck. Spinning instantly, she was ready with her knife, ready to deliver a killing stab to his gut. But he was even more ready--ready both for her stab to come, and also ready to receive the firm grip upon her slender throat for which he had been greedily yearning for uncounted hours.

His defensive hands were already positioned high and low, and she played directly into them. Her knife-hand was stopped and captured by his larger, stronger, low-hand; and her free hand came just too late to stop him from clasping her neck. In a moment Lara was helpless, hoisted from the ground, and completely unable to breathe. Though she desperately kicked and struggled and flailed, she was feeling her face turning tingly-hot, and her limbs turning numb and cold. She was losing her vision, and losing her consciousness. The last thing she felt was her knife slipping listlessly from her hand into Kini's. The last thing she saw was Kini's hateful sneer, glowering in her face.

* * *

The stone window panes were too hard for nails, but it didn't matter--they hadn't had enough time to drive nails in any case. They needed to be more expedient; and Tripp had proposed the way. By the time the two raptors had reached the stuppa roof, and were only seconds away from the royal quarters' roof, the soldiers had already set up trip-wired grenades and land mines in most of the royal quarters' windows, suspending the trip-wires with duct tape instead of nails and slide-rings. Secured back and forth across the window panes with strips of sticky woodland green, each wire hooked into a hair-triggered landmine or hand grenade that had been taped to the royal quarters' outside walls. Were something from the outside to touch one of the wires, its body would be instantly taken under by the explosion beneath it.

That, at least, was the theory.

Not all of the windows had been secured by the time the beasts arrived, and while the first creature leaped cautiously down into an unguarded, already-wired window--and was blasted clear--the other beast leaped directly down at Wallis, where he was still leaning out of an eastern window, attempting to finish strapping a landmine into place.

The young lieutenant almost lost his head to the beast as it came down, distracted by the hand grenade explosion which ejected the other beast in the west. But Cavanaugh, standing nearby, was quick to grab Wallis' sleeve. He dragged him just clear of the falling shadow. They then watched while the creature clawed its way into the window pane, its limbs tangling in the useless trip-wires in its path.

It took Doc to break the men's terrified pause. He leaped close to the side of the window; and he snatched a fist-full of the dinosaur's new trove of fine, metal, wires; and he yanked them hard. It was more than enough torsion to trigger even an unsecured explosive device. He dove clear of the creature's claws just as the resulting explosion ripped up around it.

The mine had apparently exploded directly against the creature's belly, shoving it outward with an hysterical squeal. It sailed unbelievably far through the air, kicking and flailing its furious arms and legs and tail, until it finally hit the ground--an incredible fifteen-meters' distance away. There, it leaped to its feet again, joined by its brown, stripped partner. Both creatures, surreally, were _still_ not significantly injured.

"That was a goddamned claymore mine," whispered Wallis mindlessly. Though he was still laying on the ground and was thus unable to see, he, clearly, could _hear _both beasts' angry roars.

Doc leaped back to the window and gazed down after them.

"They're fucking invincible," he gasped defeatedly.

"Let's get another one up," said Cavanaugh, climbing quickly to his feet.

But after a silently solicited head-shake from Tripp, Doc bitterly announced: "There ain't no more."

"What?" gasped Wallis, tangible fear crackling in his voice.

"That was the last one," Doc said. "All we've got now is these." He shook his MP5 uselessly.

All men now were on their feet and staring out after the raptors, who were both staring back. The creatures' bodies were bloody and battered now, but they were still upright, still pacing, still vigorous.

And, though the creatures paused to consider it a little longer this time around than the last, they ultimately began their way again toward the gangway ramp and up.

Wallis stated the obvious:

"We're in trouble."

* * *

Rainy made the mistake of looking back.

"Shit!" his young voice squeaked at the sight of the thing.

It was coming, chasing. Whistling like a broken tire pump--in and out, in and out. It wasn't so much running as hopping unnervingly gaily after him, reminding him of the love-sick cartoon skunk who was always chasing what it thought was a female skunk--but the 'female' was actually a cat, and was usually a male. He had always found that cartoon entertaining, but he couldn't see the comedy anymore. He no more wanting to be chased down and eaten alive than that cat must have wanted to be butt-raped by a filthy, stinking skunk.

But he had a healthy lead on the thing, so at least he still had options.

At first glance, the next section of the prison complex seemed exactly the same as the previous section. Rainy saw four huge reservoirs of water, four walls of darkened prison cells, and two dark corners where the immediate section of chamber should have flowed into the next adjacent section further. But it was here where he realized the difference: Instead of an opening to a new section of prison chambers, there was a darkened wall. Rainy had reached the far side of the dungeon, and there was no place further to run.

But, before he could panic, he realized that the two corner walls were each segmented with a floor-to-ceiling, mechanical-style door. It still wouldn't have given him much hope, except that instead of the usual key-holes in the side of the doorframe, Rainy instead noticed a large metallic handle fixed into a slot in the corner. If the handle was what he hoped it was, it could mean a few more guaranteed minutes of survival for him, allowing him to open and close the doors even without Kini's key. It was his only hope; but he had to admit: it was a too good to be true.

That's why his fickle gods arranged the doors to be something completely _else_ instead.

* * *

Lara's hazy mind was in nearing its death throes. She hadn't the least sense of her actions.

Her throat was in Kini's right hand and her knife was in his left. She was helpless: Hoisted a foot off the ground; clutching, flailing, uselessly. She was losing consciousness. Her peripheral vision was closing in. Her hands clutched at anything, grasped listlessly at whatever was close. His collar. His hair. His scarred face. She flailed and kicked. Until he had squeezed the last bit of life from her, her body would writhe and scratch and try. Her efforts entangled her with him--weaving her into his clothes, his equipment, his limbs.

But nothing freed her. Any second, he would soon make good on his dark intentions. He was only delaying to relish the moment. To glare into her desperate, helpless face and chant a strange chant whose blurry words had no meaning in her incoherent mind. All she knew was that the language was Ingu, and that the intensity of the chant was increasing. At the end of his invocation, she knew, it would be time for him to plunge in the knife.

This was why it was such a surprise when she found herself laying upon her side against the cold, stone floor--alive. Only afterward could she hear the sounds of Kini struggling against the raptor that had bitten into his Lara-strangling arm, throwing her clear and saving her life. This was also why it took so long for her to register that there was something clutched in her hand that hadn't been there before. With her vision only slowly returning to her the power to see the big man wrestling the beast, she would not know what she had stolen from him for another full minute--long after she found the strength to stand.

In the meantime, she crawled.

In the still-foggy confines of her half-strangled brain, Lara knew that there was something far away on the ground worth exerting herself for. She pulled her deadened torso and legs toward it until she had it in her hands. It was an endless-rounds-modified MP5 submachinegun. Sitting up sluggishly but determinedly, she lifted now incredibly-heavy-seeming weapon and turned it toward Kini--but she quickly found her efforts to have been needless.

The two big shapes danced about one-another in rapid, violent circles, as though each were trying to discard the other by power of centrifugal force. Lara, frustrated and utterly self-absorbed as a result of her mind-numbing near-death experience, had been ready to raze them both with her new, fully-automatic prize; but, before she could even summon the _muscle_ to lift the nozzle forward, the water of the reservoir immediately behind the death-dancing pair exploded into vapory madness, and the surprise caused them both, man and beast, to stumble clumsily off of the bank into the rapidly draining pool.

Finding the strength to stand (finally!)a full minute later, Lara crawled to her feet, machinegun in hand. By then, the sounds of the raging waters had faded to a dull, distant roar. There was a louder roar from somewhere further distant, but the waters in the immediate reservoir had fully receded. She confirmed it a second later, finding the twenty-foot reservoir empty save a negligible puddle--and the man and the raptor which were sitting, trapped, in its bottom.

Kini was alive, the raptor wasn't. The one incredible beast had slain the other; and now Kini stood, baring the still-bloody knife that had done the deed. The dead raptor's blood spilled from its neck and spiraled down the slow-sucking reservoir drain. Lara felt a chill running up her spine, and she clinged to her MP5, feeling a profound temptation ripping through her to take aim and end her relationship with her enigmatic malefactor at the point it currently stood. The fact that Kini gazed only coldly back at her, making no attempt to either escape the dry pool nor avoid the shots she could at any second send down at him only intensified the very same twisting anxiety which was bringing animation to her temptation's fire.

They stared silently, incredulously, upon one-another, feeling distinctly different emotions and entertaining entirely different thoughts and interpretations. It was only at this moment that she became aware of the Ingu amulet dangling from her wrist; the thing she had lifted from him while he was strangling her. She had not really noticed she had it until she registered Kini's sudden intense interest. His bloody hand touched his chest where the amulet had once been hanging, and he stared icily at the woman. His fist clenched over his chest, and he frowned at her, seeming to defy her pretenses at victory over him. Kini's utter disconcern with the reality that he was about to be rended into shreds by machinegun fire only deepened Lara's consternation and reluctance to carry through with that natural action. She awaited a provocation that Kini would clearly never provide, and the two stood a moment's silent stand-off--until Rainy's screaming voice recalled Lara to the world of the real and immediate.

* * *

The lever _had_ opened the doors. His gods had been at least _that _beneficent. It was what was _behind_ those doors that was unexpected.

If he had been standing another inch farther in one direction or the other, Rainy would have been ripped from the bank like a twig in a hurricane. Both floor-to-ceiling doors opened not to safe corridors, but to what must have been the bottom of another huge reservoir--perhaps the cavern lake itself. The in-flux was a pair overpowering torrents the size of 18-wheeled tractor-trailers. They ripped in around him, ripping through the frames of the two doorways on each side of him, trapping him in-between like a cat on the median of a screaming-busy eight-lane highway.

His only luck lay in how the twin torrents had suddenly cut the whistling raptor off from the last seconds of its approach. The beast had been closer to him than he had imagined, and it was only as he had pulled the handle and had span at the shock of the out-blasting torrents that he realized how close. The raptor's close-close face was just-blurry behind the interceding wall of coursing, impassable, crystalline colorlessness and bubbly white foam. The raptor had tentatively jutted its snout into the flow, in defiance of the obvious; but it seemed, an instant after, that it had smartly decided to wait for Rainy's next move.

But such a next move might be a long time coming, Rainy feared. He was trapped between two impassable walls of freezing cold, violently high-pressure water. There was a reservoir before him being rapidly churned, but from the look of its present violence, diving in would have been no safer than leaping into the one of the torrents. The best he could think to do was to shout for help, but even that seemed futile after a point. He was beginning to believe that Lara simply wasn't coming. Perhaps two invincible dinosaurs and one invincible native was, at last, too much for even her. It was a despairing thought that he entertained only for a moment, however; because Lara finally did appear--exploding unexpectedly from the reservoir itself. Her dainty hand clasped his ankle and drew his eyes down to where water rushed and receded back and forth from the bank. Riding one of the water's up-surges, she rose above the bank and climbed to her feet at Rainy's side.

If Rainy was surprised, the raptor was shocked by her sudden appearance. It was visibly baffled and taken aback. But only for a moment. In a second, it was clear that the remarkably intelligent creature was thinking, processing, considering the implications. It wasn't the primitive animal, but rather _Rainy_ who stood there stammering; standing, gaping at the woman, lacking even an appropriate question to ask. Luckily Lara already had a plan.

And her actions came none too soon. The raptor had also concluded its deliberations and was also moving. By the time Lara had reached past Rainy to pull the trigger-handle for a second time--restarting the drain-and-fill process--the raptor had realized it could also duck below the worst of the spray via the reservoir. Had Lara delayed even long enough to give Rainy the desperate last breath he would be direly wishing he had taken a minute later, the beast would have had time to go down and come up again, trapping them against the wall and between the torrents. As it was, the only thing it could do was follow Lara and Rainy down.

* * *

Adam Sydwinsky was a survivor.

He was a winner. He was the kind of man that neither a woman-warrior, nor a man-eating dinosaur, nor a rampaging flash-flood could ever even _hope_ to defeat. Even after being chased down a flooded underground crawlspace, and even after being washed out into the most violent rapids he had ever even heard of, he had emerged triumphantly. It might be said that God was watching out for Sydwinsky. That thought had certainly occurred to him more than once. But Sydwinsky preferred to believe that it was he himself who was making his own "luck".

After all, when Lara Croft had broken free from his captivity back in the catacombs, it hadn't been luck that had sent him leaping into the passage slanting down. All along, he had known what he was doing: To escape her pistols as quickly as possible meant using gravity as an advantage. That he had somehow evaded the two dinosaurs that were waiting for him down there might also have seemed a fluke, but Sydwinsky knew better than that as well. It was not luck, but his own calm, deliberate action. He swam _down_. He knew that the dinosaurs would panic and swim to the top of the flood. He was never in danger. He knew there would be air pockets waiting for him in even the worst-flooded chambers. If swimming down just happened to have gotten him washed out into the rapids…well, he had overcome that, too, hadn't he?

And the rapids had, indeed, been the worst. Even Sydwinsky had thought he was doomed at that point. The canal walls were slick and flat, and the rapids racing between them were towering and unforgiving. There hadn't seemed any rational cause for hope. Except for the simple fact that _Adam_ _Sydwinsky was a survivor_. That simple mantra had got him through. He had stayed cool and collected, and he had used his mind. He had known that there had to be gaps between the mortared rocks lining the tunnels. All he had to do was find one. Or maybe he had simply _willed_ one into existence. It didn't matter. The point was, he had gotten himself above the waters and to safety.

Climbing the wall and inching his way to an opening had been a snap. He didn't have to go very far at all before he had found a driveway-sized spillway slanting in. It was an in-ramp very similar to the one that had washed him into the canal from the catacombs in the first place. Even though the ramp didn't stay dry very long after he had started climbing it--and, in fact, it actually began to spill cold water quite heavily for a time--it hadn't been even nearly treacherous enough to knock him back down into the canal, nor even to hold him in place for very long.

It was no surprise at all that he would eventually make his way to the top of the spillway and find a pleasantly flat, well-illuminated, large, and open chamber: A perfect place to rest and recuperate for the next phase of his escape from the "certain" death he had faced in the catacombs. He was so confident in his own fortitude and luck, in fact, that it didn't even surprise him to find, as he arrived in the open chamber, that Rainy Hedgebrook and Lara Croft had already arrived there and were waiting to be re-taken.

Climbing up from below the edge of the farthest end of the chamber floor meant that his captives wouldn't be able to see him arriving--not that they would have been paying much attention in any case. Clearly, they were too distracted gasping and coughing up the same flood waters that had just finished washing down his spillway a minute before. And from their obvious exhaustion and general haggardliness, it seemed clear that they hadn't faired even nearly as well against the flood as he himself had.

The boy was hyperventilating. He was gasping and hacking, on his hands and knees in the inches-deep shallows that still flowed across the chamber floor. He, clearly, had fallen with the water from the open ceiling vent, about 15 feet above his head. The water was still draining heavily over him, drooling on him. Landing must have knocked the wind out of the poor boy--he was wallowing like a little piglet in the muck.

And Lara Croft, the mother-lode of captives, had arrived just as Sydwinsky arrived. His heart raced at his first sight of her. He had long ago lost his radio, and though he had been dreading trying to find his comrades without it, at the moment he was instantly grateful for his loss. It meant that he could finally _count _upon not being interrupted. He had unfinished business with this woman. _Urgent_ unfinished business. He cradled his MP5 and walked into the open.

"How you doing, sweetie-cakes?"

She moved quickly--but not quite quickly enough. He cut loose a burst that sliced the air so close to the little boy's face that when the pint-sized Navajo fainted toward the murky waters in fright, Sydwinsky thought he might actually have killed the little twerp. In any case, his shot and the explicit warning it communicated were quite enough to check Lara Croft's attempt to aggressively spin to face to him.

"Ah-ahh-ahh!" he scolded, as though speaking to a child.

She had lost her pistols, he saw; and, though she had somebody's MP5, it was out-of-reach, behind her back. So long as he kept her movements slow, she had no chance. This was going to be _great_.

"Nice to see you, too," he continued. He was speaking to her rear-end, and was in no hurry to turn her around. "Especially from back here. A great view--and don't I know? Still, let's take this thing slowly, shall we? What happened to those mean little peashooters of yours?"

"I shoved them down a couple of you bastards' throats!" she hissed.

He mocked her by yowling and hissing like a cat. "Yeah, you're pretty tough for a fuck doll."

She was going to be wonderful reward after all he had been through. But he would have to be careful. He could see that she was already itching to do something--to move suddenly. He could see her tension making all of her most delicious-looking parts tense and shaky. The first thing to do was to de-claw his new pet tiger-lily.

"And how did we get Rainy Hedgebrook down here?" he said. "What a gift! There is a generous God out there after all."

"Yes," Lara said, "you're going to be meeting him soon."

"I'm sure," Sydwinsky remarked with a smirk. "In the meantime, though, you and me are going to finish up what we started. We can do it in one of two ways. With Rainy as a witness, or Rainy as a corpse. That's your choice," he said, almost hoping she'd defy him. "I've got orders to keep you alive; and honey, I intend to obey them. But I don't need _him_. So what's it going to be?"

Obediently, she slowly unstrapped her machinegun from herself and tossed it to splash into the murk a few feet to her side.

"Good girl!" Sydwinsky said to her--now _very much_ looking forward to their coming time together.

"Lara!" protested the little soon-to-be voyeur, suddenly strong enough to grab his sexy protector by her wrist and tug twice--though to no avail. She stood her ground, obediently: Awaiting Sydwinsky's next command. Rainy tried gazing into her face to break her obedience, but she resisted rigidly.

"I know," she whispered to Rainy through firmly gritted teeth, clearly hoping Sydwinsky hadn't been able to hear.

"Yeah, baby," Sydwinsky said, hoping she was beginning to get as excited about this as he was. "Now come on over here."

"No," Lara said, her defiance sending icy desire coursing through him. "_You_ come to me."

"Is that the game?" he asked, slowing obeying; slowly walking toward them.

"Lara!" the boy whispered again, but neither Lara nor Sydwinsky would be bothered by him.

"I like you, Lara," Sydwinsky said, unable to abridge his self-opinion any longer, "what kind of surprise have you got over there for me, huh? I hope you got a knife. That'll really start this off right. Give me a nice..._struggle_...for it."

She was turned toward him, showing how she was actually unarmed. But she clearly still thought that she was ready for him. As she backed slowly from him, she was arching herself forward, bracing herself for something. Some naughty little plan or another. He clenched the pistol grip of his MP5, knowing that whatever she was about to do, it was going to be _good_.

"Well, sexy?" he asked, hearing his own excitement, and what he thought to be hers. "Are you ready to get fucked?"

She suddenly stood up, straight and disinterestedly, cocking her hips in contempt, ruining the mood.

"Ready when you are," she said.

That was when he realized that the sounds he had been mistaking for her edgy excitement--what had sounded like scraping, raspy breathing--was really coming from above. By the time he looked up, and realized she had lured him directly beneath the mouth of the open ceiling shaft, he hadn't even the time to suck in a breath to scream before the whistling, huge, brown shape fell over him and consumed him. Somehow through the whistles, the gasps, and the sounds of his own flesh being rended, ripped, and masticated, he heard Lara's faint remark:

"Now you're fucked."

Its claws ripped into his legs, and into his abdomen, and into his chest; its teeth plunged into his head and shredded his scalp. This monster, and its insidious whistling in-and-out breath, would have been the centerpiece of his every nightmare from that night on, were there to be any more nights to come to him. Its face was his last conscious memory--the last before the vicious, hard water came and washed him and the monster both back down the drain, back into the rapids--to die, once and for all.


	23. Chapter Twenty Two: The Old Words

"_Fire and water, wind and rain_

_Wings that carry hell in every vein_

_World possessions, endless tears_

_Truth and knowledge stolen all their years…_

"_The time of dreams has turned_

_The night is gone and the light shines on_

_Where darkness once would hide_

_With spirits high, our fears were born_

"_Receiver of Light_

_The Kingdom of God will guide you_

_The reason for your restless heart_

_Deceiver of Night_

_The stranger that laughs within you_

_The reason for your restless heart…_

"_What God is this_

_That stands to hear his people cry?_

_What hand would strike_

_And watch his people die?_

_What life that takes_

_What future did we earn?_

_It's our mistakes_

_Take heed:_

_The Sabbath Stones…_"

**--Black Sabbath.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:** **"**The Old Words.**"**

_Here._

_Long climb._

_Never-Gone-In place._

_Smell on Big One's back._

_Big One's 'Here-Go' smell._

_Here-Go smell, tasty-like._

_Gone into Never-Gone-In place. _

_Hurts eyes._

_Tasty smell!_

_Yes, smell tasty smell!_

_Follow!_

_Together-hunt.

* * *

_

The water was swift but brief.

After Lara had lured Sydwinsky beneath the shaft where she had known the raptor pursuing them would soon emerge, Lara had darted clear of the then-battling pair of foes, hoping to escape them both by plugging Kini's key into a slot beside the huge closed door opposite the spill-away ramp. She hadn't expected a flood to rip its way through the chamber as the great stone slab began to descend into the slot at its base, but after all she had been through in the previous several minutes, she had possessed hardly the temperament to complain. Ducked to the sides of the cascade themselves, Rainy and Lara could watch with some sadistic satisfaction while two of their most despised foes annihilated one-another in mutual ignominy--mutually drowned, mutually washed away to ever-lasting Hell before their eyes.

But experience had taught them that such pleasures often came at a hefty price; so, when the spectacle was over, the two of them had then been expecting to end up fighting for their own lives against the thrusting foam. And yet, instead, like a saving breath, the waters acted only against the man and the raptor, ignoring the desperate and exhausted pair. After the waters had shoved their foes away, they subsided into a gentle, calm, well-tamed little brook. The once-deadly water was suddenly tickling them affectionately about their ankles and shins, beckoning them to curiosity about its mysterious source.

It was then that the two noted the bright, exquisite light that was drowning the spill-away ramp's relative dimness. The light was coming from the farther side of the now-open doorway. It was an illumination which reminded Rainy of the throne room of the royal quarters atop the pyramid roof. It was an illumination which reminded Lara of the more polished and refined--the seemingly _finished_--walls of the passage which ascended from the underworks toward the more civilized chambers which had seemed promised above. It was an illumination that bespoke a deliberate architecture: A concerted ceremonial ambiance. Ankle-deep in cool foam, and drawn together in silent simultaneity, the two turned slowly from the direction of their vanquished foes toward the light of the vast chamber behind and beyond.

"Hello," whispered Lara curiously.

"Now, what the fuck is this going to be?" muttered Rainy; more quietly, less hopefully.

It was clear how the water could appear so suddenly and violently, and yet so abruptly subside: The door opened to a path that was evidently the bed of a great canal which wound about the foot of a twenty-foot platform. The platform was raised in the center of a vast-ceilinged, hundred-of-meters-large chamber. From the farthest wall, they could hear the sounds of a steadily-flowing ornamental cascade which apparently was responsible for keeping full the canalway which Rainy and Lara were using then as a pathway into the chamber. Whether this was the main way by which people were intended to enter this chamber or not remained uncertain; but the presence of a staircase leading to the top of the platform made it clear enough that humans were expected to be able to ascend from the canal bed to the plateau- top. So, following the implicit invitation, the two walked through the flowing shallows, climbed to the plateau-top, and were amazed by the rest of the chamber as it appeared around them.

It was a coliseum. A ritual coliseum. An _arena_. When viewed from the plateau itself, the meaning behind the architecture was easy to interpret. The ceiling and walls were high and sweeping, round and airy. There was an ornamentation to everything that implied what must have been a dozen lifetimes-worth of duteous, meticulous, expert artistry. There were bleachers carved into the walls, but they were not simply blocks of crude, scaled stone, but rather were flowing formations that had been etched, sculpted, and shaped to an eye-entrancing perfection.

But it was not only the sculptures and etchings themselves that enchanted, it was the phenomenally exacting manipulation of the blazing white walls' ever-present ambiance. The shapes upon the walls had been placed and calculated to project precisely-shaped shadows and cunning three-dimensional illusions. The deep and flattering false-perspectives that projected from the walls and bleachers made the room seem larger, grander, and more alive than any ancient relic had right to be. The effect was an atmosphere of enchanting majesty and humbling sanctimony. Plus, everywhere--_everywhere_--there were ancient written symbols, characters, and illustrated narratives. The chamber was a veritable three-dimensional encyclopedia of ancient symbols.

And Lara could read them all.

"Oh, my God," she finally said. "_Now_ I understand."

* * *

"What the fuck are we going to do now, man?" gasped an exhausted and prostrated Tripp, clinging to his useless 9mm pistol as though it were the whole world to him. "What the fuck are we going to do!"

"Shut up!" hissed Wallis, though he was no less panicked himself. He, like the others, was busily spending his last fraying nerves starring upward, through the narrow slots composing their cold, white stone cage.

The raptors, as expected, had returned to their siege of the royal quarters. But, as yet, they had made no further attempts to actually force entry. They had been pacing its roof, huffing and puffing, drooling down at the men within. Their black and brown ugly snouts passed in and out of vision behind the ceiling-slots while they wandered the roof, watching for opportunities--looking for signs of weakness, signs of panic, signs of surrender. So long as the men could keep themselves looking vigilant and ready, they sensed, the dinosaurs would hesitate to again brave their dangerous inner sanctum.

But they wouldn't be able to maintain their exhausting façade much longer.

"Tripp's right," whispered Cavanaugh. "We can't last like this."

"You want to go out there?" gasped Wallis hopelessly, pointing out over the desolate cityscape beyond their windows.

"We need a plan, man!" demanded Doc.

"You're the leader," Tripp gasped at Wallis. "Lead!"

"Alright!" snapped Wallis, feeling cornered. "What about escape?"

"What about it?" said Doc.

"What are the options?" Wallis said. "That elevator lift?"

"No," said Cavanaugh, "we'd need that necklace Kini had."

"What about running down to the rafts?" Wallis desperately proposed.

"What? Outrun _them_?" gasped Doc, "you stupid motherfucker!"

Wallis shrugged and was about to blurt out something else when Cavanaugh interrupted:

"What we need are reinforcements, Lieutenant!"

"We can try calling the colonel again, but--"

"The colonel's KIA!" said Doc.

"Why don't you just get us the fuck out of here?" asked Tripp.

"Sixth and Seventh Squads are on standby!" said Doc. "Call them worthless bums in!"

"It would take them four hours just to get here!" said Wallis.

"Four hours beats the shit out of never!" Doc replied.

"Look, the colonel--"

"Fuck the colonel!"

"He's the only one who can--" Wallis attempted to explain.

"Get on the fucking radio--" Doc interrupted.

"He's the only one with the access codes!"

"What? What codes?" Doc demanded; but he didn't let Wallis answer: "Shut up!"

Wallis scowled and sulked, shaking his head while Doc spoke into his radio headset, cueing the helicopter.

"Op Flier, this is Second Squad," Doc transmitted.

"_Go ahead, Second_," replied the headset.

"We need an emergency evacuation, right now."

"_Coordinates?_"

Doc and Cavanaugh exchanged nervous glances, realizing they had not fully communicated their situation. The pilot had obviously thought they had meant _surface_ coordinates.

"Down here," Doc said. "I mean, I need you to patch me through to HQ. We need to call in the reserve forces. The shit's got out of hand."

There a brief and ominous pause before the pilot transmitted again.

"_Ummm,_" he finally said, "_I'm not getting a cross-cue from you, Second..._"

"A what?" demanded Doc.

"A cross-cue," sighed Wallis impatiently. "Look--If you had paid any attention at all to the fucking briefings, you'd know that we've got to have the colonel to make a call outside of the Command Net!"

"Fuck that!" hissed Doc. "By-pass that shit!"

"_I can't_," transmitted the pilot.

"He can't," echoed Wallis.

"Why the fuck not?" demanded Doc. "Look, Morigushi, just thumb up the fucking frequency!"

"He can't!" insisted Wallis.

"What do you mean, 'he can't'?" demanded Doc, "why not?"

"Because he doesn't _have_ the frequency," Wallis said.

"_Because the code_ **is** _the frequency_," explained the pilot. "_Look, Second, I feel for you; and if I could take this fucking bird down that hole after you, believe me, I would. But those codes are the encryption for the satellite uplink protocol. I _**need**_ them. If I don't have them, I can't make contact_."

"That's bullshit!" snapped Doc.

"What would you have him do, Doc?" demanded Wallis, "transmit in the clear? You might as well put it all on Pay-Per-View!"

"If that's what it takes!" Doc said.

"The mission--"

"Fuck the mission!"

"We are expendable--"

"_Fuck_ dying!"

It was a psychological stand-off between Doc and Wallis. Wallis wouldn't speak another word, because Doc--incensed--seemed to be looking for any excuse to pounce. The tension was delicate and palpable, and both men were armed. Luckily, the pilot, safely removed, settled their differences:

"_Look, Doc,_" Morigushi said, "_I can't do what you're asking. I'm sorry._"

"Fuck!" Doc spat, turning from Wallis and pacing bitterly toward a corner of the chamber.

"_You've got to get us those codes,_" another transmitted voice said--the helicopter's crewchief this time.

"How?" whined Wallis. "The colonel's out of contact. Probably KIA."

"_You don't need the colonel,_" said Morigushi.

The crewchief completed the thought: "_You just need his PADD._"

* * *

"You can read this?" asked Rainy.

"Not exactly," Lara replied, her eyes scanning the floor around their feet. "But I can interpret most of it."

The plateau at the center of the arena was as elaborately detailed and engraved as the walls and the bleachers of the coliseum. The platform was laid out before them in the shape of a bulbous 'X', with each arm extending from the centerpiece of the entire chamber: A twenty-foot-hexagonal shaft which lead directly downward into a vast, distant, darkness. Forming lines leading outward from the edges of the shaft toward all of the corners of the X were individual rune-like, or hieroglyphic-like, characters; each exquisitely carved within its own elaborate one-half by one-foot frame. The way they were aligned made it apparent that the walk from the steps toward the center-shaft was intended to be a journey for the eyes as well as for the feet; each line of characters seeming to be telling a separate and equally intriguing tale--and Lara was intent upon reading them all.

"What do they say?" asked Rainy.

"Quite a bit," Lara said. "Look: this one is 'god'; this one is 'people'; this one is 'woman'; this one is 'era'."

"What language is it?" wondered Rainy.

"None specifically," Lara said. "It has elements of a number of Native American scripts."

"Different tribes?" asked Rainy, "getting together here?"

"It's more pan-etymological," Lara said, kneeling to bush dust from the grooves of a rune. "I'd more likely guess this is a core-script, and the other languages are descended from _this_."

"Wow," Rainy murmured, over-awed by the sheer volume of the writings; the effect of them--layers upon layers of them--embedded within every surface of the chamber. "So, this is...what? Like a stone-age library or something?"

"It's a ritual battle-arena," she said with bitter certainty.

"What?" asked Rainy. "How do you know that?"

"Because this is the story of Qawalapeque and Qawalynn."

"'Qawalynn…'" mused Rainy. "That's what Kini called you. What does it mean?"

"'The Bride of Qawalapeque'," Lara explained. "The Ingu seem to have a phonetic morphology all their own, but the characters here seem readily comprehensible. This one is clearly reminiscent of the image of the god on the giant mural we saw when we first boarded the raft."

"I remember," Rainy said.

"This one coupled with it is 'god'," Lara said, pointing at each glyph, "and those are 'woman' and 'lover', respectively. You see how they are all combined as though a single word. You see the coupling again here, and there, and there."

"Why does Kini think you're Qawalapeque's girlfriend?"

"Because it's due to me that all of his people are dead," Lara explained.

"I don't understand."

"I do," she sighed, "finally."

Rainy waited, trusting that Lara would finish her explanation; trusting that her pause was only due to the emotions she was, for a time, needing to battle back into submission. He waited patiently until, at last, she continued her interpretation of the carvings.

"Qawalapeque is a god of power and destruction," Lara said. "People came from all over the world to worship him here, once upon a time--long before there were people living in South America. Long before the Incas or the Aztecs. There's the implication throughout these writings that the people who lived in this palace were like gods themselves: They saw kingdoms rise and fall while their own dynasties endured. Single rulers here saw a dozen changes in rulership elsewhere. This was the center of the world; or so these people wished to believe. But"--and she extended her gaze in a expansive gesture that included the entire room as though it were not merely the writings at her feet, but the entirety of the writings of the chamber that supported her conjecture--"it seems that they depended upon a line of outsiders to support their religious ritual life. Only an outsider could serve as their Qawalynn."

"'Serve' as Qawalynn?" asked Rainy. "I don't understand--it's a job? I thought it was a goddess' name."

"Yes to both," Lara said. "The title is ritually bestowed. Look there:" She pointed well across the chamber to a wall where many distant small glyphs had been ingeniously arranged to form a few giant glyphs that would only be visible from the platform where the two, that moment, stood. "Those symbols imply both 'power' and 'hatred'. Bean mentioned this. He said the god hated the people, and wished to see them destroyed. But here, near your foot: This line of characters describes several of the qualities of a person who could keep the god dormant and his powers compliant to the needs of the kingdom: 'Strength of body': to appease the god's rather athletic pleasures; 'Strength of mind': apparently because the god isn't too bright, and can be swayed by the convincing argument of a maiden--presuming he's properly enamored of her. And this line: 'Unpracticed beauty and grace.'"

"Does it really say that?" asked Rainy doubtfully.

"More literally," Lara conceded, "it says 'raw' or 'uncooked'; maybe 'unsavory' or 'unrefined.' But the context definitely points to a condition of being on the outside of what is thought to be of, or pertaining to, the cultivated polish of the royal aristocracy or the court nobility. 'Barbarian' is what these parallel writings say: 'Someone who comes from the uncivilized netherworld above'. But the 'beauty' and 'grace' part--that's fairly literal."

"So, what did they do with their Qawalynn?" asked Rainy disparagingly. "Chop her up into little pieces? Feed her to the monsters outside?"

"No, quite the contrary," Lara said. "She's supposed to have already braved the monsters in the jungle before she's even to be allowed to begin her ritual. Furthermore, it says back there, near the steps, that the woman who becomes Qawalynn will be treated with utmost pampering and devotion. A good reason to fight for the title."

"_Fight_ for it?" asked Rainy.

"Yes," Lara said, "that would seem to have been the purpose of this arena: The annual ritual tournament."

"So, there've been many Qawalynns?" asked Rainy.

"No," Lara murmured, "only one."

"What?" puzzled Rainy, but you just said--"

"There were many _candidates_," Lara said. "There was supposed to always be a ritually-proven candidate available, just in case. It tells of the great god's 'waking thunders' and 'threatening fire-floods'. I can only assume its refers to tectonic activity, which would very common here, on the Pacific Rim."

"Tell me about it--I've been stuck out here for a year."

"Apparently, these people had some way of using the sleeping god to give them real-world power. It looks to me that what they are calling a 'god' may well be the source of this palace's unusually advanced technology. I shouldn't doubt that all of these doors and elevator lifts are tied to a single powersource of some kind. They built all of this in a single ruler's reign, and were very proud of their achievements. But it humbled them to think of what might happen should Qawalapeque realize what they had done to him. They developed a pattern of ritual over-caution, knowing that if Qawalapeque awoke, it would only be if Qawalynn were there to appease him that they would be saved. Every once in a while, the soothsayers _did_ sacrifice their candidates; but, of course, it was always a false alarm. The real Qawalynn--the Qawalynn of prophesy--wasn't supposed to be sent to join the god in the Underworld as an appeasement to _stop_ the eruptions; she was supposed to be sent to beg on the people's behalf to win their passage to _Heaven_, despite their crimes of usurping the god's powers in his sleep. They knew that, inevitably, the if the god were ever to wake, he would destroy their world and murder them all. Qawalynn or no."

"My god," gasped Rainy.

"Yes, indeed," Lara said, her tone weighted with angst.

"So, are you saying," murmured Rainy, "all those people, the Ingu tribe-people, they, they..."

"They all _knew_ they were going to that clearing to die. They knew it would be a trap. They weren't trusting in me to save them--damn you, Bean!--they meant for me to _vindicate_ them. To avenge them somehow. And Kini knew right along what was happening. That's why he only attacks me with blades: It's how the candidates fought one-another. The true chosen one can't be killed by a blade!"

"Oh, Jesus, Lara," sighed Rainy compassionately.

"No time for that now, Rainy," Lara said, kneeling and pointing to one glyph, standing, and kneeling again to point out another: "Help me find a shape like this one, and another like this other one--_together_."

"Why? What does it mean?" asked Rainy, though already searching the tiles around his feet.

"Together they mean 'exit'."

"Gotcha."

They each searched separate quarters of the X in awkward silence for several minutes. It wasn't until she heard Rainy's voice say

"Found one of them,"

and she replied

"Needs to be both"

that Lara finally lifted her head to look his way--

And realized he was missing.

"Rainy!"

There was no immediate reply, but she could then hear a heavy, deliberately telegraphed pattern of boot-falls coming from one of the X-leg's flights of steps--the end where Rainy had just been conducting his search. It was a horrible blow to her heart, but no surprise at all, that Kini should then ascend the steps to the platform, Rainy in his hands--a still-bloody knife blade pressed tightly to the little boy's throat.

* * *

Stripes was enraged; but rage had yet to overcome pain.

The Ugly Things' noisy pain was dangerous! He hadn't let it to get in his way before, but after his last time of being punched so hard by noisy pain that he flew like a giant fluttery through the air, Stripes had found himself turned reluctantly cautious. He was too afraid of their noisy pain to try to get back in to the Ugly Things' high-place nest, but he was still too enraged at them to make himself walk away and look for other, safer, entertainments. He and Black paced their nest-top, smelling them, snarling at them, taunting them; hoping they might be frightened into leaving their nest, where they might be able to attack them from behind.

The trouble was that there were only a few spaces in the white-walled nest where Stripes or Black could slip through, and as long as the Ugly Things were looking seemingly everywhere at once, there was no time when they could possibly approach without being struck down by noisy pain. Both of them were already dripping with tasty-juice, and neither seemed as strong or fast in leg or back as they should be. They were weakening; and there was no other food seemingly anywhere nearby. They were too slow to attack with their normal bravery, yet too desperate to go on without meat. They had no choice: They would have to find a way into the Ugly Things' nest.

A way that the Ugly Things weren't watching.

* * *

"Give me a hand!"

Wallis answered Doc by abandoning his work at the Interlocutor and joining him and Cavanaugh in lifting the metal pyramid model. With their combined strength, the soldiers managed to lift the great steel-flanged artifact from the fountain-top frame and wrestle it to a side. After removing it, they let it topple noisily on its edge. The noise made the two dinosaurs overhead jump and stir in their observation posts, and all of the soldiers' eyes went up toward them--to be sure neither horrific form had moved to take an advantage while the three's hands were away from their weapons and explosives detonators. Satisfied their tenuous stand-off was still intact, the three relaxed their hands from their pistol grips and returned their attention to their tasks at hand.

"You sure about this?" asked Doc, looking over the edge of the fountain-frame where the metal model once stood.

What they had earlier assumed was only an ordinary fountain reservoir--shaped two meters square and only a few feet deep--there was actually a larger, seemingly bottomless, shaft that lead straight into the depths of the pyramid. The shaft was white-walled and brightly illuminated the whole way down; yet it still seemed ominous and frightening to Doc, who had been nominated to spelunk its depths.

"If it's an air shaft, there should be passages along the way that you can break in through," said Wallis.

"Yeah, I see them," said Doc, noting the shadows that dotted the otherwise white of the shaft's interior.

"The PADDs are all interlocked," continued Wallis. "The colonel's PADD is already triangulated. All you have to do is follow the shaft until you get to the point where if you hold the PADD straight out level from you, you get a shorter range reading than when you hold it down and away. It's range-sensitive to a few feet. You ought to be able to tell the difference pretty easily."

"'Ought to'?" barked Doc, though his frightened voice had lost a lot of its usual force.

"Once you've found him, all you need is his PADD," continued Wallis. "If you feel safe enough, we can make the call right from there."

"Sounds good," Doc said.

"Line's secure," reported Cavanaugh, dropping the long, long line of rope over the edge of the reservoir shaft and letting it fall and uncoil, meter after meter after meter--for 100 feet--where it snapped at the end of its length. The near-end of the line was still secured to the ceiling slat where he and Doc had tied it before diving down from the roof. It was no comfort that the black dinosaur, even then, was sniffing its knot as though wondering if nylon fibers might make a nourishing snack for a prehistoric ruffian such as itself; but there was no other structure in the chamber to which a rope might be secured.

"Keep 'em away from my rope," Doc hissed quietly, noting the hovering black beast.

"Don't worry," said Cavanaugh, "we'll keep them off."

At that, Tripp aimed and fired his 9mm, jarring all of their nerves with the sudden jolt. But the black beast was effectively dissuaded by the shot, and it swiftly retreated from the rope-tie--seeming to have spotted some other roof-top distraction.

"Thanks," said Doc.

"Anytime," whispered Tripp, with a smirk.

But Tripp was pale. He was becoming weaker. They would have to hurry.

"Rappel down," Wallis said, "and we'll pull you up."

Doc hardly needed the instructions. He was already tying himself onto the rope, and was moving into position for a backward-launch from the fountain's ledge.

"Yeah, you better pull me up. I ain't climbing this whole mutherfucker myself," he said.

Then, after a pause and a bounce, he was away into the depths.

* * *

The colonel had lost his headset to the waters.

It seemed he had lost everything except the damned vest that had saved his life.

The vest had been an accessory he had neither asked for nor wanted, yet it had been one that Jacob Corbin had insisted upon--even if R&D hadn't been prepared to provide similar prototype anti-stellargetic vests to the rest of the Operations Force. In a real way, the colonel's arranging for his troops to be issued an unauthorized supply of X122 stellargetic rounds for their weapons had been Adolf Spaulding's small revenge for Corbin's callousness. He wouldn't have his men sent out to fight without a distinct tactical advantage--not only for his own person, but for _all_ of his men. Screw Corbin's 'security issues.'

And damn Corbin anyway.

And damn Kini.

It had been a long fall from the latticework of the underworks cube to the cold moat about its foot. Even if the automatic stellargetic fire hadn't penetrated his body armor, it certainly did _hurt_; and more significantly, it had knocked the wind out of him, and had caused him to nearly drown. He had sunk like a stone into the water, and by the time he had re-emerged, he had become so tossed and misplaced by the currents that had started raging as soon as Kini's door had finished opening and closing that he had come to surface only to find himself hopelessly lost within the shadowy mechanisms of the dark and flooded cube. It had taken what had seemed an eternity to weave and wade through the murky depths before he had found his way out to the light of the larger chamber.

The colonel had no weapons, no radio, and no men that he knew of. He might have at least been able to make some contact with the outside through his PADD, but it seemed that even that possibility was lost--his PADD had been ripped from his neck, along with his radio from his head, and his weapons from his hands. His only hope was that the waters that had swept through the underworks hadn't also taken away the body of his dead soldier, Ross. Ross would still have his weapon, his radio, and his PADD. As the colonel approached the edge of the cube, still neck-deep in water, it was Ross he was searching for; letting his eyes scan across the rim of the wet, stone landscape that lay before him.

At first he saw no sign of Ross, and this was what he thought was troubling him. But there was something else that was affecting him. An unaccountable sense of danger. And fear. At first he thought he might be worrying about the dinosaurs; but the dinosaurs had never filled him with such _dread_. Without seeing anything specific, the colonel felt a horror he simply couldn't explain. His inexplicable horror made it so that when he finally spotted a sign of Ross--his head and shoulder half-visible around a corner--he felt furiously impelled to put himself into possession of the body and quickly rearm himself. It was only then, as he clumsily, noisily, attempted to pull himself from the moat that the source of his fear struck him consciously.

It was a smell.

A smell like nothing he had ever consciously known--at least never before that day.

It was the smell of panic.

Before Spaulding could pull himself from the neck-high water around him, his own body seemed to freeze around him and become limp. He slipped backward, back into the water--his eyes locked on Ross' _suddenly moving _body. Ross' head and shoulder jumped and bounced, shook, and were ripped out of Spaulding's sight by a set of four or five black, spindly legs--with tiny, smelly, hairs all over them.

* * *

Kini was keeping Rainy's body close to himself, as though a human shield; but the exercise was pointless. Lara had lost her MP5 when the water had washed away Sydwinsky and the raptor. Once Kini also realized this, he relaxed his guarded posture--but he kept his blade against the boy's fragile throat, and he kept the violent, hateful scowl that, to Lara, it had seemed the native man had been _born _wearing.

"Release the boy, Kini!"

"No!" he shouted back defiantly. "This one, I will kill! And you will have no more reason to run! We will fight. Here is a good place to fight."

"I said, release the boy!" Lara commanded, no hint of appeasement in her voice.

"No, I will--"

"_I am Qawalynn!_" Lara growled with a horrifying conviction--a conviction so pure and vehement that it made even Rainy tremble with awe. Kini was silenced. "And I _command_ you to release the boy."

"You are a blasphemer," Kini said; but his voice quailed with uncertainty. "You are false. I will--"

"And what if you are wrong, Kini?"

Kini was silent. He seemed humbled for the first time that either Lara or Rainy had seen.

"I am not wrong," Kini finally said.

"I will deny you passage to Heaven, Kini. For your crimes, I will--"

"Blasphemy!" Kini shrieked insistently, stomping his booted foot and shaking Rainy and the blade that rested upon his neck.

"I am Qawalynn, Kini!" demanded Lara. "I have fulfilled the prophesy! And I have passed your tests! Did I not come from the outside? Am I not fair and unpolished? Can you kill me with a blade?"

"I _will_ kill you with a blade!" And he prepared to draw his hot, razor-edge inward and back in a stroke for punctuation, but--

"**_Stop!_**" Lara's command-voice froze him.

He waited, and she let him wait. She took her time, letting him adjust to her. And then she continued.

"Do you know what this is, behind me?"

Lara gestured toward the great hexagonal maw in the floor behind her.

"I can prove I am who I am, Kini. I can prove it to you. And you may yet be with your tribe in Heaven."

Kini looked at the maw. Clearly, there was recognition in his eyes. Not the sort of recognition that implied an ability to read the writings around him, but definitely a recognition. Possibly from a recollection of the ancient tales told to him in his childhood; possibly from a recognition from dreams. Kini knew where he was. He knew it well.

Kini was silent, shaking.

"When I return," Lara said, "if the boy lives, you are saved. If he is not, then are you _all _damned."

The knife blade dropped from Kini's hand, impacting the glyph-carved stone with a piercing clatter.

The noise made Rainy look downward for so long that he almost missed the sight of Lara diving gracefully into the pit.


	24. Chapter Twenty Three: Qawalynn

"_Run like hell _

_Yeah, moving fast_

_Don't fail me now, know you gotta last_

_Move it on up _

_To the quick step, go_

_And I get more speed when I get real low_

_Yeah, runnin'_

_Can't kill a dead man_

_Let your secrets fly_

_Yeah, runnin'_

_Can't kill a dead man _

_Move it on up_

_As fires fill the sky..._

"_I'm leavin', I'm stayin' _

_I'm broken down_

_For grievin', conveyin' _

_I am renown_

_In all my dreams I know I can_

_In all my dreams I am dead man..._

"_Can't kill a dead man_

_Can't kill a dead man_

_Can't kill a dead man!"_

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:** **"**Qawalynn.**"**

There had once been a time when Doc had considered rappelling fun. It had been back when he was still a raw recruit. Back during those great old days when Airborne School, Air Assault School, the Ranger, the Special Forces, and the Mountaineering schools had all sounded like wonderful places to go. He had jumped from, climbed up, marched over, or rappelled off of virtually every terrain or aircraft the mind could conceive. Those early years had been glorious fun--full of adventure and challenge. Doc wasn't sure if what he missed most was the clarity of those good old days, or simply the innocence his accelerated career had cost him. But, in any case, by the time his fast-talking CIA recruiter had found him, the stunning pleasure of suddenly finding himself dangling on a single thin rope above some random, deadly, chasm had evaporated. Rappelling was just business now. Serious business. A business that was meant to be finished as quickly as humanly possible.

Certainly, this massive white airshaft was but a case in point. There was nothing to cling to within its cold, flat confines. Its walls were icy-smooth; its throat, unfathomably deep; its air, fast and uncharitable. When Doc looked up, he saw, perhaps, the scalps of a fellow soldier or two, gazing pityingly down after him; but, when he looked down, all he saw were the eerie depths--still bottomless, despite how far he had come. There was no way to tell what might be down at the bottom of that howling pit. Doc feared the end of his rope: It was coming quickly. If he weren't lucky, its tip would slip violently through his grasp, and then he would find out, first hand, what dwelled in the core of this white-walled hell.

He was dangling like a yo-yo, and after every few feet of descent, he had to halt himself, take stock of his situation, slow his constant rotation about the axis of his rope, and examine his PADD. Each time, the readings told more him bad news: Further down. Further down. All the while, the coils inched steadily through his gloved palm and through the metal D-ring affixed at his uniform's belt. Had he both hands available, he could stop the rope completely; but he needed one hand to hold the PADD.

"_Are you okay down there?_" asked Wallis' voice through his headset.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Doc snapped, frustrated at having to verbally communicate in addition to all of the other tasks flustering him.

"_Because you still have a ways to go,_" Wallis continued. "_You're only down fifty meters._"

"Now, how the hell do you know that?" Doc demanded.

"_Because I've got your PADD on my uplink_," Wallis said. "_I can read whatever you read_."

"Well, shit!" Doc hissed. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"_Well, I--_"

Doc cut him off, "Just tell me when I'm down to the right altitude."

He let the PADD hang by its cord about his neck, and he returned both of his hands to their proper guide positions upon his rope. He then raised his lock-hand from behind his buttocks, letting the line feed smoothly and swiftly through his D-ring. He descended quickly; keeping wary watch on the shrinking coils below.

"_You're twenty feet above target now,_" Wallis' voice said. "_Fifteen..._"

"Just tell me when I start getting close," snapped Doc.

"_I will,_" said Wallis; continuing a moment later, "_you're almost there. You're--_"

But then something happened that made Doc halt his descent with an awful jolt. His eyes were wide and his pulse suddenly jumped to twice its normal speed. His body suddenly gyroscoped into a fiercer spin about the hanging cord. He suddenly knew exactly how much further he had to descend, and he suddenly knew exactly which side-passage he was supposed to take.

"_That's it! That's it!_" exclaimed Wallis' voice.

"Yeah, I know, I know!" snapped Doc, desperate to regain control.

"_What the hell is going on down there?_" added Cavanaugh's voice, clearly in response to what Doc had just heard.

It had been an explosion beyond one of the side-shaft entrances. A distinctly familiar sort of explosion.

And it was followed by another; and then several more--all in a steady succession.

* * *

"Lara!"

Rainy dashed to the edge of the pit, throwing himself down at its edge recklessly, carelessly; nearly sending himself after his guardian--over its lip and down toward whatever was awaiting her.

"Why did she do that?" he gasped into the dark and empty shaft. He couldn't see its bottom. He couldn't see its victim.

"She's a fool," said the stoic Kini, still standing where he had been, near the steps. He apparently thought Rainy's question hadn't been rhetorical.

Rainy folded his body back from the edge and planted it on its rear-end. He covered his eyes and sighed loudly. It was too long a fall to survive. There was nothing below to meet her--at least nothing that he could see. Could she really be gone this time?

"Why?" Rainy gasped; again, intending his question for a missing Lara; but hearing it answered instead by the ever present Kini:

"She believes it is her destiny," Kini said--earning him a hard glare from the helpless, bereaved little boy. Kini smirked and continued, "If she is Qawalynn, she will survive."

"'Qawalynn'!" snapped Rainy, standing up in anger.

"You do not believe?" replied Kini.

"Believe what?" demanded the boy, unthinkingly; pointing at the pit for emphasis, "believe she can survive _that?_ Kini, I've known you a long time. You're crazy, but you're not _superstitious_! You don't believe in this shit! You told us yourself--you said--!"

"I know what I said," Kini replied. "I've said many things. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Old Words _are_ true. Maybe your grandfather was right after all."

"If so," braved the little boy, "does that mean you're on our side now?"

Kini was silent for a moment, and he didn't meet the boy's eyes. He hardened himself, and finally spoke:

"We shall see if she lives."

"Oh, God," moaned Rainy. "And what do we do? Just stand here? This is nuts! How would she get back here even if she did survive?"

He glanced about the chamber's enigmatic architecture, turning his back to Kini's fierce gaze.

"She will use my amulet," said Kini. "It will open every door in this temple."

"She doesn't have it," Rainy moaned--again, unthinkingly.

"She does not?" asked Kini, his voice suddenly resonant with its more familiar rage.

Rainy suddenly realized his mistake.

"Where is my amulet, Rainy Blue-Sky Hedgebrook?"

Rainy slowly turned toward him, all of his old fear resurging.

"Where?" Kini demanded.

"Um..."

"_Where?_"

Rainy swallowed, and spoke quickly: "It's keeping the door open. It's over there."

Rainy pointed at the main spillway through which he and Lara had entered.

"Show me," Kini demanded, reaching for the boy and seizing him by the shoulder, leading him toward the exit.

Kini marched Rainy down the steps and through the ankle-deep, steadily flowing shallows. The force of the man's fierce hand upon his shoulder made Rainy want to wince, but he resisted the urge with all of his mettle. He knew that resistance, or even an appearance of resistance, would result in even more pain and grief. He cooperated for as long and with as much forbearance as possible--waiting for a better opportunity.

He hadn't expected one to come his way quite as quickly as one did, however.

As they crossed the boundary of the great floodgate and stood at the threshold of the spillway where the dinosaur and the soldier, Sydwinsky, had both been washed away, Rainy was quick to be cooperative, pointing out the hub of Kini's amulet where it sat, still half-embedded in its key-slot in the wall.

"There," Rainy said, "there's the key."

But Kini's attention was elsewhere. The force of his grip upon Rainy's shoulder loosened, and then lifted altogether. Kini didn't seem to be paying any attention to Rainy anymore. Instead, he was slowly, stealthily, skulking toward the far edge of the spillway ramp--toward where it declined into the massive canal that swirled perpendicularly around and below it. Rainy watched while Kini moved farther and farther away. It was as though the big man didn't at all remember that the great door behind them would quickly force itself shut the instant the key-necklace was ripped from its slot.

When Kini finally reached that farthest edge, and peered over the raging canal far below, Rainy seized the opportunity. He ripped the key from the slot, knowing that Kini would be too deafened by the noise of the distant canal to hear the door grinding back to life. The instant he pulled the key, Rainy leaped over the ledge of the suddenly, swiftly-rising door; putting himself back into the coliseum. Safely inside, he glanced back just before the rising door cut off the sight of Kini, spinning and charging. Strangely, Kini's dash seemed more a retreat from whatever was over the edge of the spillway than a response to the closing door.

In any case, Rainy wasn't interested in Kini's problems--the water in the moat about the great X-shaped battle-stage had already risen to his knees since the door had begun to close. Rainy kicked and fought his way to the steps, and bounded up to the stage at a dash, the water already at chest-height by the time he was fully free of it.

As he reached the stage-top, he span to see Kini still perched atop the steadily rising, nearly closed door. The big man was fighting to pull himself over the top, but something was pulling him backward, again and again. The door would soon crush him between its topmost rim and the roof, but Kini continued to fight for passage, as though hell itself were the alternative. Rainy soon understood why: Just as Kini finally freed himself of the rim, diving and suddenly swimming in the ever-rising, fifteen-foot-deep moat, a black and terrible thing scrambled across the threshold after him--and another and another and another. So fast, and so fierce, were these ugly, terrible things, that even though they had only a few feet to pass through, and only a few fractions of a second to act, five, six, or maybe even _seven_ of the abominations managed to gain admittance to the arena.

They were long-legged black spiders; and they were as large in the abdomen as Doberman Pinchers.

Kini was in the water somewhere, swimming--perhaps diving to avoid them--but out of Rainy's immediate sight in any case. Rainy's attention was focused solely upon the abominations that were suddenly climbing the same steps he had just climbed; that were suddenly appearing on the same battle-stage upon which he was standing. But Rainy had no intention of challenging them for the championship their arena bespoke. Rainy's only intention was to stay alive--and definitely not get caught by _them!_

He turned and ran.

The far side of the X-stage stopped short of the chamber's farthest wall, but Rainy's speed and adrenaline wouldn't let such an insignificant obstacle as a churning eighteen-foot-deep moat slow him down. He dived into the water at the far side of the stage, and he swam toward what he had, at the last second, seen was another key-activated door, partially concealed behind one of the chamber's two ornamental waterfalls.

He was in and out of the moat in a flash, surprising himself with the power that primordial fear can inspire in a warm-blooded animal when it is confronted by the coldest of the world's cold-blooded killers. Rainy had already inserted the key and had started the big door opening before the spider behind him had even reached the end of the stage. Rainy only looked back only long enough to see the big bug sink like a rock into the depths of the moat before he yanked back his precious, newly re-commandeered, key-amulet and leaped through the then-closing passage.

* * *

There was water at the bottom of the pit.

Lara had known that there had to be; but it had been such a long, long fall, she had had more than enough time to begin to doubt. After its cold comforts finally surged over her and had gradually strangled the speed from her fall, she had immediately resurfaced. There, at the bottom of the shaft, she rested momentarily. Before she would be willing to further commit herself to her task, she would take these few minutes to tread the water; to breathe deeply, and to consider the challenge she faced.

These next several minutes, she knew, would be unlike any she had ever lived. This time her challenge wasn't merely to stay alive--that task would have been more easily accomplished by remaining above and finding some other solution to the stand-off between herself and the enraged native. This time, her task was to prove something to _herself_. She had read the writings on the walls; she had listened to the words of the old man; she had braved the terrors of the forger's fires: It was time to test her mettle. It was time to know, once and for all, who she was, and who she wasn't. She had, finally--_literally_--read the writing on the walls. She knew where she was. The place had a purpose. It had been waiting for her for even longer than she had been waiting for it. She wasn't there to cheat her way through this obstacle course. She was there to face her trials, to pass her tests, and to win this title that was, apparently, her birthright.

The chamber below her was an aquarium hundreds of feet wide and more than a thousand elongated; filled with cold, crystal, water. There was but a tiny sliver of air between its surface and the ceiling. There would be little air to breathe, and no place to rest. She had seen that while three of the walls around her were raw rock, like the caverns, the floor below her and the farthest wall were chiseled smooth and finely--whitely--finished. She knew that these features, so distinctively clarified, implied how she would accomplish her task, once she committed herself to a closer exploration of it.

So she took a breath, and she dived into the first of her Qawalynn trials.

* * *

The boy was quick! There was no denying that.

How quickly he had abandoned the room while Kini had been investigating the noise over the edge of the decline of the canal! Perhaps the boy hadn't realized what dire peril he had been abandoning him to when he tried to shut him into the outside corridor with those dozens upon dozens of spindly, deadly terrors. But Rainy had certainly known what he had been doing when he had then raced clear of the main chamber, again shutting the door tightly behind himself, without the least concern for the one he was leaving behind.

Still, Kini had no reason to feel personally injured by the boy's abandonment. How many times that day had Kini been _his_ greatest threat to life? There had been so many such times that even Kini couldn't recall them all. How many times had Kini violently assaulted him? Perhaps too many. But, Kini knew, there had been justification in his doing all of the evil things he had done; so perhaps, Kini reasoned, there might be some justification in Rainy's doing what he had done. In fact, Kini had to congratulate the child somewhat: He, the seasoned warrior, had been genuinely taken unaware by the boy, and had been nearly defeated to death for it. If Kini were to survive long enough, he would try to remember to compliment his young adversary--before he choked the life from him.

In the meantime, Kini faced the spiders--all eight of them.

It might have been a miracle of luck that they hadn't fanged him while struggling to hold him by his boots as he climbed the rising stone wall-door. But it had _certainly _been a miracle of freakish nature that, at their size and obvious weight, they should have the agility to then leap over that swiftly closing ledge themselves and follow him into the main chamber.

Kini had well known the stories of the fiendish beasts that inhabit and surround the legendary (and once thought mythical) White Temple; but nothing could have prepared him to face the creatures in reality. The walking lizards had been one thing: a nightmare, to be sure; but simply beasts--of no greater nor lesser account than mountain lions or sharks or anacondas. But these spiders--these menaces! They were of some other category altogether. They were fear incarnate: Something intangible about them made them so. Perhaps it was the way they moved. Perhaps it was the way their cold, crystalline, eyes always seemed fixed upon you, their prey. Perhaps it was the seeming unreality of there being in the world a terror so very, very, big that was, beyond all comprehension, of the proportions of a terror that was meant to be so, very, very small.

The only advantage for the human was the beasts' lack of buoyancy: The spiders sank in the moat, and stayed at its bottom like stones. Though they could climb the steps to the platform-top, they could not tread the moat, nor could they reach the ledge where the boy had opened and closed his escape-door. So, that was where Kini retreated--leaping as Rainy had, swimming as Rainy had, and pausing to watch the spiders as Rainy had--watching them vanish into the drink and sink harmlessly out of range. Kini watched them floundering uselessly underwater, wagging their spindly stick-legs at him in vain attempts to tread to the surface.

For a time, he would be safe; but soon they would solve their dilemma. Kini had a feeling that these were smarter than your typical spiders.

Kini knew that there would be no way to follow Rainy directly, but he felt far from hopeless. He quickly assessed the two soft-flowing cascades spilling over Rainy's door, filling the moat. Their passages were well large enough for a man to enter. Yes, Kini thought, this would likely be his best option for escape. He hadn't any idea how long these water passages might be, but with the water in the chamber continuing to rise, and with the spiders' quickly figuring out how to pile themselves into a arachnid step-ladder beneath him, he knew that it was his one and only chance.

Besides, he could hold his breath for a very long time.

* * *

This was the test of Qawalynn's strength.

Of this Lara was certain. The far wall of the aquarium was obviously a one-hundred foot door. It was slotted into the walls and locked into the ceiling by a complex series of interconnected gears; some as small as four feet, and others as large as ten, in diameter. And there was a single open spindle in the middle of the system, glaringly gearless. That gear was on the floor in the middle of the aquarium. It was five-feet across, made of iron, and must have weighed upwards of a thousand pounds. Yet, she would have to transport it, somehow. It was a difficult task that was complicated to the point of near-impossibility by the fact that the open gear-housing was seventy feet up the face of the door. This was a task that would take no less than superhuman strength to accomplish. She didn't know if she was up to it; but she was definitely up to try.

The first thing was to move the gear to the base of the wall. To do that, there was no other method than the most obvious one. She would have to pick it up and carry it. It was time for Lara to take one last breath and go to work. So, for only the fourth time since arriving, Lara kicked her way to the top of the aquarium for a quick taste of that sliver-of-air before beginning her test.

And suddenly her test began early: At the top of the aquarium, there was no longer any air.

And Lara instantly understood why.

The depth of the water had risen. Fresh water had spilled in from above. Her aquarium was fully filled, emptying her sliver-spaces of their air. And with that new water there also came, one after another, a new series of horrors: Giant black spiders fell in from the well, from the battle arena above, and sunk like rocks to the aquarium floor. Even from her distance, she knew exactly what they were: Memories like those never fade. She could see them struggling along the bottom, moving in surreal slow-motion, steadily working their way toward her.

So, though breathless, Lara dived and seized her metal yoke--which weighed at least three times more than her own body--and she joined her terrifying new friends for a foot-race, long-distance and slow-motion, across the bottom of this, the aquarium of the very gods themselves.

* * *

It was their stench that had made the colonel think of it: Maybe the spiders hunted by smell.

It would explain why they might congregate at the site of Ross' profusely bleeding corpse. It would explain why the colonel himself was still alive: In the water, where they couldn't smell him. Had they been able to see better, they should easily have seen him clinging to the edge of the moat, where his head bobbed up for air. Yet, they had not--even though they were everywhere, all around the chamber. They were hunting, searching, and yet they had missed him, again and again.

That was what had given him the idea. He had lost his MP5. He had lost his 9mm. He had lost his radio, his PADD, and his strength. But he had still had a few landmines. And he had still had his grenades. If he could keep himself as fully under the water as possible--to conceal his scent--and move slowly enough, and quietly enough, and throw his weapons accurately enough, he had figured that there might yet be a chance he could keep himself alive. At least for a while.

His first move had been to create a more effective bait--and to test his original theory. Ross's corpse bled; but, after having been submerged in the water for as long as it had been, it was hardly as attractive a lure as, perhaps, it could be--were its wounds a bit more _open_. Throwing a claymore mine wasn't its conventional use, but it had turned out to be an effective strategy. The colonel had thrown his mine to the length of its detonator wire, and he had squeezed the detonator mechanism from his safely-distant place in the water. The result had been a few killed spiders--and a messily splattered human body. Then, as he had expected, the other spiders took instant notice of the freshly exposed human tissue, and had come running. The colonel was ghoulishly delighted to watch their hundred spindly legs carrying them in from all directions.

Soon a dozen more were in place, and he blasted them all. This time, with a grenade. In fact, he threw two--instantly realizing how ineffective one grenade was by itself. He quickly mastered a sort of ratio of spiders-to-bombs-to-radius around the increasingly unrecognizable corpse. Before long, he had the spiders falling dead in small clusters, gathered around the fallen, grisly, dismembered and half-eaten body of his former troop. In Spaulding's mind, there was a sort of vengeance in drawing them in this way, with human flesh, and killing them with humantechnology.

He made the spiders come, and he made the spiders die.

Until only a few spiders remained.

And he ran out of explosives.

* * *

Perhaps paradoxically, eight legs were _not_ a more effective than two.

At least, Lara mused, they weren't as effective underwater. Although, she had to admit to herself, she might have had some small advantage in her flat, rubber-soled boots, which could actually cling to the smooth stone floor; as opposed to the useless barbed claws the spiders had, which scraped at the ground beneath them nearly frictionlessly. The spiders' resulting surreal slow-motion was a necessary adaptation to their relative inability to gain a footing. It was a problem Lara didn't share: The massive weight of the five-foot diameter metal gear she had placed across her shoulders provided a more than adequate weld between her boots and the rock. Lara had no problem keeping ahead of her competitors; and, in fact, she very soon she enjoyed a generous lead of them.

And it was a lead that she was going to need. The next part of her task would be the worst, and it would leave her helplessly vulnerable to them once they caught up to her.

At the edge of the aquarium's rocky-textured side-wall, starting at the corner between it and the smooth-textured door, there was a long series of hand-holds carved into the floor. Its shape reminded Lara of a set of train-tracks, but it should have reminded her of what it truly was: Though carved into the ground, it was a ladder. It would have seemed a useless ornament, had Lara not also recognized the rest of the device around it: On the smooth wall above the empty gear housing, there was a large pulley; and fed through that pulley was a hefty cable-like rope. On one end of that rope, there was an attachment that would clearly make it possible to fasten the rope to the metal gear. On the other end of the rope, there was human-yoking harness. The only component that was missing was its engine: Qawalynn herself.

When Lara reached the foot of the door, she hooked the metal gear to the one end of the rope, and she hooked herself into the harness at the other. It was then when she thanked providence for her lead on the spiders. To lift the gear by the rope through the pulley, she would have to pull herself, hand-over-hand, along the ladder-track--straight into the face of the slow-motion onslaught.

* * *

Perhaps there were really were none left.

It had been several minutes since the colonel had thrown his last grenade. He had exhausted not only his explosives, but also (though it frightened him to imagine it), perhaps even his luck. It was simply inconceivable that the expenditure of his last weapons should so perfectly coincide with his enemy's last expenditure of troops. And yet, the Underworks chamber was now quiet; and it seemed somehow likely to remain so, at least for a time.

He let himself stir a little in the water. He let himself desire a better view. Even though the colonel sensed that he had not seen the last of the spiders, he knew that whatever reprieve his bombing campaign had earned him would only last long enough to escalate his actions to their next logical phase. And there was only one other logical phase. Ross' body was still armed and equipped in just the same way his once had been: It had a PADD, a radio, an MP5, and more of those immensely useful grenades and mines. With luck, he could get himself the equipment he would need to call for his own rescue, and could secure more weapons with which to defend himself while he waited. But he hesitated. Luck, after all, had been behaving very strangely that afternoon.

When the colonel finally climbed from the water, it was his own body weight that first struck him as unusual. He was more than merely fatigued. He was exhausted. And he was cold. The dead air of the Underworks filtered through his soggy cloths and bogged down his already hefty equipment. But he suffered more than merely physical fatigue. He was _mentally_ exhausted, too. And that made him think. It made him think that maybe he _wasn't_ thinking. It made him redouble his efforts to pay attention.

But he couldn't make himself even _nearly_ awake enough to avoid stumbling into the trap.

When the colonel walked around the edge of the Underworks cube, his mind was fastened upon the mutilated body at the corner. He was _too_ intent upon getting through his next ghoulish exercise--too hurried, too focused--to see the tenfold-set of cold, killer, crystalline eyes that watched him from the black complexity of the Underworks. The colonel's hands were nearly on the dead soldier's MP5 before he heard the terror-machine sound of its body's thirty-eight exoskeletal armor-joints rattling, clattering, and collecting themselves into a pounce.

Spaulding's eyes came up, and he froze in horror. His hands were paralyzed but a foot short of the machinegun that might have saved him. His mind emptied. The waiting, wanting, hungry black spider, in a single moment, scored its permanent psychological victory. Spaulding could not move, would not move.

He couldn't even _flinch_ for self-defense.

* * *

Rainy decided on 'down'.

Perhaps it had been Lara's voice echoing in his mind, '_our way is down, Rainy_'. Maybe his gods, in whom he didn't believe, had whispered it to him. But for whatever reason, Rainy decided to take the circumferential stairs to their right: The way which angled down. Whatever made him choose 'down' hadn't been his own wisdom, that was for sure. Even the thought that he might rescue Lara from her pit hadn't entered his mind until several seconds _after _he had began to descend; and that, he only too consciously knew, was nothing more than justification after-the-fact. Still, after he had decided that he was on a rescue mission, his pointless trek down the fifty-meter wide shaft had acquired _motivation_--and that had been enough to keep his heroic fires burning.

And certainly, Rainy needed some sort of inspiration to keep him going. The steps he followed were narrow and crudely carved from the walls of this great shaft. Their dangerous path spiraled downward to some unfathomable depth. The only hint that Rainy had as to what might exist this deep in the cavern complex was the steadily increasing noise of some watery violence that seemed busily doing some terrible labor somewhere beyond sight. His thoughts about becoming a hero to Lara, for once, was the only thing that kept the otherwise timid boy on course--even though Rainy knew that 'up' would probably not be any more safe.

The real problem was that he didn't know where he should exit from his spiral stairs. There were many closed doors along the wall, but no one seemed any more inviting or promising than any other. Additionally, the fact that there was always a constant trickle of water flowing along the surfaces of his shaft seemed to warn him that his path was a hydraulic conduit of some kind--one that might explode if he started one of these many hydraulically powered doors back to life. He knew that he would likely only get one choice--and he might not even be able to make use of that choice, given how any significant increase in the water flow along these already slickened steps would send him stumbling from his ledge and falling down to find out the hard way just what chaotic work the water was doing in the bottom of this spiral-stairs-wrapped pit.

So, Rainy simply descended, further and further into the dark.

He waited for his gods to make his choice for him.

And they _did_.

In just the way they usually do.

* * *

The spiders were nearly upon her by the time she reached the end of the track. She could practically count the hairs on their backs, they were so close. But they were moving so slowly--so awfully slowly--that she had just enough force of will to keep her hand-over-hand rhythm going despite them. Despite the fact that her greatest effort was in suppressing the instinct to keep moving _toward_, rather than away, from their fearsome faces.

She felt a tension welling within her that was a scream fighting to get out. She was only a few feet short of the first beady-ten-eyed thing, and for these last few seconds, with her last few ounces of strength, she would have to shorten those few feet to nearly none--knowing she would meet the beast in the middle. She quickened her rhythm, and she burned her muscles sore in the effort to push them past their regular pace; to push her past the speed of the thing that was crawling toward her--even while she was crawling directly toward it.

The stiff fiber rope behind her angled steeply upward, and her body, apart from her burning shoulders and arms, also angled up toward the far, white chiseled-smooth wall. The suspended gear was nearing its proper slot in the mechanism. Lara's lungs burned, and her head ached, and her most sensitive primal instincts writhed as she pulled herself the last few inches toward the final rung in the ground-ladder--where she pulled her load-harnessed chest down flush against the last hand-hold.

The spider was then only a foot away, reaching its front-most feelers, uncoiling its white-tipped fangs--

There was a hook on the chest strap of the load-harness; and, with a scream that only Lara's mouth and sinuses could hear, she wrapped it around the rung, locking the rope in place--freeing her body from its role as chief anchor and engine. She was beginning to feel the tickle of a few spiny hairs by the time she reached back for a rung and ripped herself back and out of the harness's one-way enclosure.

She was somewhere buoyant just above the spider's reach when it finally over-took the harness and reached its fangs through the empty straps, as though unwilling to believe that the flesh that had been once there had fled. It wasn't until Lara had turned and had begun the long swim up toward the suspended gear that the spider seemed to realize and accept its failure. What Lara didn't realize, however, was that she had just given the spider exactly what it needed most: A web.

After several peaceful seconds, Lara finally looked back. When she did, a wave of near-panic swept through her. The spider was climbing the rope, using its eight sharp little claws for their designed purpose: Digging into the rope and scaling it like a fiber. Lara couldn't possibly swim faster than the thing could climb, and it was already at her heels. Reflexively, she mimicked its technique. She grabbed the rope with her own hands and yanked herself up the line with as much force as her mighty body could exert. After that, she had a quick lead--but she knew it wouldn't last.

The two racers were quickly closing on the pulley and the suspended metal gear. Once there, there would be no place for Lara to retreat save clear of the obstacle--which would give it to the spiders. She would simply drown there, just off to a side of victory. She increased her speed instead, beyond what she had given to the ground-ladder; beyond what she had given to any effort in her past: She knew that if she failed this, if she passed unconscious before the end, or if she didn't have enough speed to perform this last desperate act on her first try, there would be no use for any of the strength she might have kept in reserve.

Like a battering ram, her race up the rope turned her into a human missile, a ballistic mass of direct trajectory and extreme inertia. She launched herself from the rope, and she struck the metal gear with her shoulders and her head and her hands, heaving it backward on its suspension hook in a single Herculean shove. That instant, the spindle and the center of the housing met the edge of the metal gear's wheel-shaft, and the two almost married. They were not quite sealed enough to effect full use of the gear, but their hold would be suffice for the few seconds Lara needed to simultaneously push it fully into place with her chest and to use her right hand to knock the rope-hook loose from the rim of the gear.

She could not see, but she could _feel_ the water wash by her as the spider's whipping, angry claws missed her back--all eight. As the rope whipped loose from the overhead pulley and fell, the spider fell with it. She watched its legs flailing like mad and failing to make its rock-heavy body in the leastwise buoyant. It hit the bottom of the aquarium, rejoined with its several comrades. They all scratched uselessly at the foot of the wall, trying to climb up after her. They were exerting themselves futilely.

It was only then, after a moment of calm, that Lara realized how her vision was beginning to fade. There was a heavy pounding sensation in her skull now, and her limbs were beginning to weaken at last. She knew that she had been unbreathing in this test of hers for some many minutes now; certainly many more than she had ever been underneath water before. She couldn't guess the exact number, but it was certainly time, in any case, to finish the task.

And hope its reward was what it had damned well better be.

When she shoved the gear the rest of the way into place, meshing it with its neighbors, the entire ensemble began to roll and work, and she felt a sudden groan erupt throughout the wall before her. She then pushed herself clear of the rolling metal wheel and its meshing teeth, and lunged into the gaping space at the top edge, where foaming effervescence signaled the presence of air.

She wasn't thinking.

There was air--she sucked in a huge quantity of it--but her refreshment came at a price. The water was spilling away in massive quantities, rolling neatly over the top of the descending door in a great cascade. Lara was too busy sucking in air to realize she had just become a part of that cascade, but she understood a moment later--once she fell and hit the bottom hard.

* * *

Spaulding couldn't move, but something else moved so quickly around him that it made even the soaring, pouncing, spider seem sluggish. In an instant, the colonel was on his back; away from dead Ross, and clear of the giant spider's landing zone--which was, bizarrely, well off to the side of where its jump had aimed it. Whatever it was that had moved so blindingly fast around Spaulding's body had also made the spider stop in air and go another way. It was a thing that was dark and strong and ferocious. A thing for which Spaulding felt an instant rush of conflicting hate, gratitude, and awe.

Kini had leaped in from nowhere. He had intercepted the soaring spider in mid-air with a lightning jump-kick. He was even then still moving at a speed to fast to track: Gathering up Ross' MP5 in a swooping motion--breaking the shoulder-strap locking it to its corpse-owner--aiming it, and unleashing its fury upon the suddenly puzzled, suddenly flustered, spider.

While Spaulding remained motionless and speechless, the spider began to take Kini's full-auto fire to its midsection. The spider was stopped by the stellargetic particle barrage as though it were leashed to a post. In a few seconds of useless resistance, the spider's tough outer coating cracked open and spilled a judicious ooze. The wound got bigger and bigger; and, in a few more instants, the spider was left shattered and dead.

"Kini!" gasped a stunned, shivering, and incredulous Colonel Spaulding.

But Kini wasn't interested in conversation. When he turned back to face the colonel, he was looking over him--toward the corridor where the Underworks chamber met the vast drainway of giant spiderwebs outside. There, as the colonel simultaneously looked and was yanked up to his shaky feet, he could see a veritable army of dog-sized spiders trooping in, squeezing themselves between the bars of the grate; entering the Underworks. Suddenly, the colonel wasn't interested in conversation anymore, either.

They both ran for the big northernmost exit.

"Can you open it?" gasped the colonel breathlessly, recalling how Kini had earlier entered that way with Rainy Hedgebrook.

"I can try," said the big man, reaching into load-bearing equipment and removing his duct tape and one of his hand grenades.

"What are you doing?" gasped the colonel. Didn't he have a key or something?

"Back," said Kini; his grenade, by then, strapped over the keyhole.

He pulled the pin, and both ducked for cover.

The explosion ripped through the chamber; but the door, unluckily, remained closed.

Spaulding threw a look back into the chamber to see the army of spindly darkness closing their multitudinous ranks.

"What now?" gasped Spaulding.

"Again," said the native simply, reaching for more tape, and another grenade.

"No time!" screamed the colonel, snatching the MP5 from where it was tucked among Kini's belts and straps.

By then, the spiders were almost upon them--

"_Colonel!_"

But the voice wasn't Kini's. It came echoing through the chamber from someplace far away and high above. The colonel looked and saw the unexpected face of his now-favorite soldier, Doc--standing at the mouth of a previously unnoticed passage that was twenty-feet up the face of the eastern wall. He had already extended a length of rope for him and Kini to climb.

"Come on!" screamed the colonel, and he made a mad dash for safety--not even looking back.

* * *

It took Lara a few moments to realize that she was pinned.

But pinned by what? How?

Lara had gone down her share of waterfalls that day. They swept her down and washed her around and around. They didn't _slap_ her hard to the floor and then _pin_ her there. Then she realized the floor was perforated with thousands of small holes that allowed the water to drain so rapidly that the constant massive deluge, instead of washing her away, pressed her gently to the ground. Realizing this, she rose to her knees and began to crawl clear of the falls, one drainhole at a time. Soon she found herself fully clear, standing on dry surface but a few meters from where a wall of water impacted and neatly vanished into the seemingly solid floor before her.

"Astounding."

By then, the hundred-foot door was more than half-way down. It would not be much longer before the spiders trapped against its opposite side would be free to enter this new dry chamber after her. She would have to assess her situation quickly. The chamber around her was very large, but wholly unimpressive. It was of a texture and character very similar to the aquarium chamber, but its floor dimensions were greatly less; and it boasted no more finely chiseled white-walls than the one which was already mostly open. It was simply an empty chamber.

"Swell," Lara murmured--once she saw the chamber's one essential feature:

There was a single open doorway in the side wall. A narrow, tile-floored pathway ascended beyond it into parts unknown. It was mysterious and treacherous-looking, but there was simply no where else to go. And when the spiders came, they would be back in their right element--back upon the dry ground.

"I guess I know what _I_ do," Lara murmured, and she entered the corridor at a cautious pace that would turn quickly to a blind, maddened dash.

* * *

He didn't expect the water to come from _below_.

Rainy knew that with his gods, his timing, and with the sort of passage that was around him, it was only a matter of time before destruction came calling for him; but he hadn't expected it in quite the form it took. He thought the destruction would come spilling in from the top of the spiral-stairs-lined shaftway, not come bubbling up from its depths. And these bubbles were nothing to trifle with: They practically _fumed_ with some unexplainable energy. It was as though they were boiling. They were alive. _Screaming_. Surely, what he was witnessing was an upsurge of water from the pyramid's deepest reservoirs, but this vapor-front seemed more a wave of overly dense mist than any body of water. And when they touched his skin, these vapors _hurt_. It wasn't hot, exactly; but the effervescence was somehow violent. In a few moments, he was already choked and blinded. Before he could even see the coherent, deeper waters--rising and churning--he was already in danger of being washed away.

Rainy managed to push himself to the next door by running and leaning against the wall of the shaft, sliding along. He was too blinded to guide himself by sight; not through the fog of hellwater, which he kept gasping in and out of his mouth and throat. He was burned by it and blinded by it and deafened by it. He never imagined the gratitude he would feel once he had used Kini's key--gratitude just to be on the other side of a door.

As the door fully shut behind him, Rainy then found himself facing another dimly illumined tunnel and another barely agreeable mystery--but at least he was out of that shaft. And leaning against the closed door behind him, he could tell that his escape hadn't come a second too soon: The entire shaft shook with whatever form of energy was being transmitted through that water. Rainy, leaning against the door, could feel the heavy stone _vibrating _against his skin. Awed, he backed away.

He backed all the way to his next unexpected encounter.

* * *

Within the main chamber, there was some sort of incredibly huge machine.

Doc wouldn't ordinarily be interested in such things, but this giant, mechanically ingenious cube was incredible: It was obviously ancient, and its technology was obviously primitive, but it was more complex than any pulley/gear-mesh ensemble he had ever seen--or even imagined. The sight of the thing had been nearly enough to distract him from his mission.

But he wasn't there to back-engineer the Aztecs, or whoever these people were who built the place. He was there to rescue a PADD--and maybe a colonel, too, if there were one still alive somewhere down there. He had earlier heard a few explosions, but his first visual exploration of the chamber hadn't shown him anything. In any case, he had fed his rappel line through the short corridor connecting the cube chamber to the airshaft, and he had lowered the rope's end nearly to the floor, twenty feet below, when the shooting began.

Doc had seen the colonel and Kini not more than a few seconds after that; but he had been too stunned at the sight of the thing they were fighting to call out to them. Was it a _spider_? Doc's voice simply left him. The floor had begun to turn black behind his comrades--a veritable _carpet_ of spiders were coming after them. Finally, Doc found his voice; but by then they were trying to use a grenade to blast down a door, and the explosion obscured his call. But they sure heard him when their tactic didn't work: They came running--followed, far-too-closely, by their unnatural entourage.

Spaulding was the first at the foot of Doc's wall, and the usually cool and collected colonel practically threw away his MP5 to free his hands to climb. Kini, just behind, was quick to scoop up the weapon from the floor and turn it toward their monstrous pursuers, but it was clear that their weapon was going to have little effect on them. Kini sprayed them, back and forth, but they just kept coming. Doc wanted to bring his own weapon to bare but his hands were both busy supporting the colonel's weight. The best he could do was heave the colonel up as fast as his back allowed.

"Go, Kini!" Doc cried, the moment the colonel was safe at his side.

Kini also wasted no time. Though firing during one second, by the next second, he had stuffed the MP5 into his vest and was already a few feet up the rope. Doc and the colonel then joined forces and pulled Kini almost instantly up to their high, safe perch while the spiders--now unresisted--quickly began to close around the base of the wall, scraping and kicking with what must have been the arachnid equivalent of moral indignation.

"Tie in!" Doc shouted, quickly pulling at what remained of the slack.

The colonel and Kini were quick to lock their D-rings on the line, but they weren't nearly quick enough.

"Tie in, goddamnit!" Doc shouted, seeing what was just about to happen, but not able to think of any way to stop it.

One, and then two, of the spiders figured out where their prey had gone--and how. A dozen separate sets of claws jumped at the rope's dangling end and yanked it down mightily. It was only the fact of the rope being so well-secured those 100 meters away in the throne room behind him that Doc--secured to the rope by a D-ring--wasn't simply ripped right off the edge and into their waiting claws and fangs. As it was, there was almost no time before they were upon him--scrambling up the rope in the expert way that spiders do such things.

At the same time , Kini and colonel were also yanked hard by the rope, locked in their places by the instantly taut coils wrapped through their D-rings.

"Cut away!" screamed the colonel, in horror at the sight of Doc nearly in their claws.

But Doc didn't have time to unfasten his knife. Instead he took the MP5 hanging at his side and shoved it at the first spider's eyes as it approached. He unleashed a stream of stellargetic fury, and kept the blast constantly going afterward. But it seemed that for every spider Doc felled, another was already on the rope to replace it. Their column was steadily rising, each pushing past its predecessor's best achievement, reaching at the rim, reaching for the man--

Doc redirected his fire toward the rope itself, and severed the line instantly.

Suddenly, the rope--its elastic having been stretched to the maximum--recoiled; and all three men were whipped backward and off of their feet. The colonel, deepest in the passage, stumbled furthest; falling off the far edge and into the main vertical shaft. His weight pulled Kini after him, and both weights tugged mightily at Doc. But Doc didn't follow them--the rope, so short and frayed at his end, had spooled loose from his D-ring. While the others rode out into the main shaft, he himself stumbled backward clumsily, abandoned to the then spider-infested passage.

The highest climbing spider had actually reached the top edge of the passageway, and was pulling itself swiftly onto Doc's level, leg after leg after leg, inches short of his ankles. Doc tried to aim and fire the MP5 again, but it was upon him too quickly, and he knew his shots would be too little and would come too late. He dashed toward the main shaft, desperately leaping the distance between the edge of the conjoining passage and the still-dancing, quick dangling, coils that whipped wildly in the air beneath the feet of the two men already outside.

Doc caught the rope, barely; and he held to it with a fever and a desperation that he had never before known. Something about being so close to that spider had put a fear in him that he had never thought he could feel. He was grateful to be away from the thing, even if only trading it for a bare-handed perch above a vast chasm. But when he then realized his rope was penduluming its way back toward the opening, and the spider was suddenly there waiting for him, he nearly threw the rope away in his horror.

Doc screamed--but Kini was cooler. Just as the spider arrived at the cliff, Kini used his MP5 to blast away its front claws, making it slip. It came off of the edge and it fell away into the effervescent white mist that was swiftly rising up from below.

It was the first they'd noticed the climbing mist. It was the first they'd heard its roaring voice. It was even the first they had noticed that its energies were somehow rippling through the entire structure of the pyramid. By the time Doc realized these things--by the time he saw it--the mist was already upon him.

Already consuming him.

It stung.

And then _hurt_.

Then--

All three men were suddenly shrieking in horror and agony, but it was Doc who was screaming the worst, being at the bottom. Being the first to be get a full-taste of the up-shooting hellwaters.

* * *

It hardly seemed a test.

It was nothing more than a passage.

It was a tiled corridor; long, and narrow; and though the tiles seemed somewhat loose under-foot, they, clearly, were easily capable of holding her weight. It was hardly a challenge.

At first Lara was worried about what might be the test of this passage; but shortly she decided that the passage wasn't any test at all; but, rather, must lead to where the next test would begin. She had nearly satisfied herself with that explanation when spiders began to follow her. She ran from them; but, even then, it wasn't the spiders themselves that made her rethink her assessment. Surely the ancients hadn't intended spiders to be part of their Qawalynn trial. What gave her pause was how the spiders suddenly began to _disappear._

Lara had been hearing their claws against the tiles--_tick-tick-tick_--and then, suddenly, the noise _stopped_.

She stopped, too; and she span, and she saw--

Nothing.

There was nothing behind her. The spiders were gone.

And then a new group of them appeared in doorway at the aquarium's landing. They stopped there, and cautiously watched. _From_ _where it was safe_. It was then that she heard the _tick-tick-tick-tick _sounds returning. Getting closer. And Faster.

It wasn't the spider's claws, it was the floor itself. The tiles.

They were falling away, one at a time, like dominoes.

There was nothing to grab hold of--nothing on the walls or ceiling to cling to--not left, right, or up.

And there would soon be nothing but vacant space where the floor once was.

"Shit," Lara whispered, as she turned and dashed.

* * *

"Get them out of there!" screamed Cavanaugh, tugging at the coils of the rope, though unable to see anything clearly through the violent, agonizing foam and vapor.

The waters had very, very quickly filled the vertical shaft; coming virtually explosively up through the fountainhead. Wallis, and Cavanaugh, and even poor, ragged, Tripp, had been swiftly at the ropeline as the chaos had begun, pulling desperately to retrieve their suddenly subsumed companions. It was to their utter horror and ironic chagrin that their pulls could not retrieve the rope faster than the thrusting hellwaters beneath were feeding it up as loose slack.

In seconds, the rope's end was in sight; along with the vague, distorted, shapes of their men--and the hellwaters. Horrendous. Violent. Agonizing! Their vapors filled the throne room, swirling around them and torturing them. It exercised their every fiber of will to remain at that fountainhead and keep pulling their men from the watery fire that was threatening to baste them all alive.

Then, at last, their dangling men arrived, and they pulled their water-ragged, wide-eyed comrades free. But, in the same second, the hellwaters themselves surged over the rim of the fountainhead, like over-boiled soup. The foam thrust out into the air and fell over everything, sizzling it all just long enough to make its human victims forget for an instant that somehow, paradoxically, the water itself was actually ice-cold.

Finally, in the blurry madness of the throne room, the forms of the men, still too blinded to recognize each others' faces, managed to seize the giant metal pyramid model, and cap the blasting fountainhead. An instant later, all was calm. What had once been a dry and meaningless relic was then flowing elegantly with cool sparkling currents. The fins of the metal pyramid funneled the violent surges downward in harmless, elegant, picturesque sheets. The cold, clear, water gently filled the fountain's reservoir; and the hell-power that had pushed it up to them now seemed harmlessly under leash.

The calm was unnerving.

"Aaah!" groaned the mad, wide-eyed colonel, laying on the ground in shell-shocked exhaustion, repeating again and again: "What the fuck? What the fuck?"

But it was Cavanaugh who realized it first:

"Where's Doc?"

"Oh shit!" moaned the colonel miserably, realizing it too.

There had been only two men recovered from the fountainhead, Kini and the colonel. Kini was climbing back to his feet with an air of concerted stoicism, but he joined the others in their horrified glances back toward the fountainhead. He joined them in their grief.

Cavanaugh started back toward the fountainhead, but Kini stopped him with a word:

"Gone."

"No," protested Cavanaugh, insisting upon taking another look.

"He wasn't tied in," sobbed the colonel, whose emotions had apparently spun out of control. He wasn't sobbing for grief, he was simply sobbing. In what might have been an act of humiliated embarrassment, Spaulding then rolled over upon his face, and wailed hysterically.

Cavanaugh and Wallis stood incredulously, viewing the scene before them. It was strange, but it was the first moment that Cavanaugh noticed how the sky was actually darkening outside. It was as though the fake illumination of the cavern somehow mimicked the setting of the real sun. According to his wrist-watch, it was indeed nearly early evening.

"Cavanaugh," murmured Tripp, who was again sliding back down into his corner and his convalescence.

Cavanaugh knew what Tripp was asking.

"Colonel," said Cavanaugh. "Colonel Spaulding."

The colonel didn't answer, but he did heave a slow sigh, and he stopped sobbing for a moment.

"We need your access code to call for extraction."

But, utterly unexpectedly, a reply came to him directly into his ear:

"_No you don't_," said chief Morigushi's voice. He had apparently been online for some seconds.

"Sir?" asked Cavanaugh, realizing that the other soldiers who were also wearing radios were also wearing his same puzzled expression.

"_Been trying to call for a few minutes now_," continued the helicopter pilot. "_Your reinforcements are already here._"

* * *

When the enclosed corridor ended, the real test began.

Confronting Lara was a criss-crossing, inclining-declining, dead-ending, twisting, convoluting, and massively disorienting labyrinth of suspended tile pathways--somehow held above purely empty space by a complex entanglement of interconnected ropes and beams. Lara could just spare the fraction of a second it took to look down and see that below the labyrinth there was nothing but raw volcanic chaos. The crust of the earth was split open, exposing the volcano's smoking magma and geologic fury. But she could spare not an instant more than that fraction of a second; for, as she made her leap cross the threshold and into the open-air labyrinth, the stream of failing tiles behind her had nearly caught up--and the tiles of this new pathway were falling out even faster.

Lara had no time to consider it, but it was obvious that this was a rapid-fire, through-the-crucible test of judgment, agility, and speed. The way before her was a cleverly designed labyrinth intended to confuse and frustrate her. To cause her to go one way and then second-guess herself into hesitation or worse: Doubling-back. But the maze was elevated, laid out before her like a huge map. It was clearly designed so that a clear-thinking, calm candidate could decide her route long prior to having to make her irreversible choices. If she could keep herself calm, keep herself fast, and take all of the sharp intersections without hesitating, she could survive this test. She had to keep her wits about herself, never slow down, and stay icily calm about the whole affair. It was a test of grace under pressure.

It was a test of _grace_.

The realization was gratifying, especially as she reached the final stretch and threw herself upon the solid pathway at the labyrinth's end. She hit the stone with a smooth dive-roll, and was back to her feet in time to watch as the last tiles toppled down behind her like the last of a chain of dominoes. It was a satisfying sight.

It was a gratifying accomplishment.

She was breathless, but the sight of the maze of ropes and beams without their tiles made the whole exercise seem worthwhile. The passage from which she had come was so far away that, in retrospect, she could only be amazed at her powers. Had she seen this challenge from the far side first, she might well have been too intimidated to try. But now, but now...

Now she would never be intimidated by _anything_ again.

She turned her back to the test of grace, and she started up the stone passage toward whatever might be next.

She could never have anticipated what she would see, trapped, on the opposite side of that obstacle:

"Rainy!"


	25. Chapter Twenty Four: Benediction

"_I am waiting my son_

_On the threshold to the other side_

_Cannot tell you_

_What is here_

_What I see now is beyond your mind_

"_I am formless_

_But I feel_

_All the questions burning in your head_

_Learn your lesson_

_And never grieve_

_For there is no beginning and there is no end_…

"_Truth is never_

_What it seems_

_Bodies whither but your mind still dreams_

_No one ever_

_Can rest in peace_

_Until they've learned the game and become light to darkness_…"

**--Sanctuary.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:** **"**Benediction.**"**

"Rainy!"

Rainy was at the far-away end of the long, narrow corridor, and he seemed just as surprised to see her as she had been to see him. He hesitated incredulously before finally beaming a jubilant smile.

"Lara!" he said, his voice echoing down the passage, "Jesus Christ--you're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive," Lara heard herself saying--though it dawned upon her a moment afterward that, by all rights, the boy's surprise was more than justified. She was still wet with waters that should have dashed her bones and drowned her lungs; she was still exhausted from outrunning spiders that should have easily chased her down and had her for their fangs. She was still out of breath; still exhausted. She was still a little uneasy on her legs, leaning against the wall of the narrow corridor and drooping her eyes upon the finely sculpted patterns etched in its floor. Her mind hadn't quite recovered its sharpest edge from her moments' past mindless, breathless ordeals. She hadn't yet even the wits to make her simplest intuitions conscious--let alone the foresight to stop Rainy before he made exactly the mistake her intuitions were warning about.

"Rainy, wait--stop!"

But it was too late. Even as Rainy waved his joyous arm over his head in greeting, and took those first few mistaken steps down the narrow passageway, the etching-marked blocks of the floor gave way beneath him. Each block had only a foot or less in each of its cubic dimensions, and when the first broke away, the rest--the entire floor beneath them--instantly followed. Rainy went down into the spill as though sucked down by quicksand. And, to her chagrin, Lara realized that her own walls and floor would be no more durable. Without time to throw herself clear--or perhaps without even trying--Lara followed Rainy into the vast, hot red blackness lying beneath and sprawling out vastly between them.

* * *

"What reinforcements?" demanded the colonel, standing--suddenly sober. "Who called for reinforcements?" 

Their colonel's instant sobriety and his chilling, utterly unexpected expression of alarm and apprehension made them all stiffen and stammer. Wallis' tone turned instantly apologetic and defensive; Cavanaugh's, angry. Tripp went silent and stayed, for the moment, out of the way.

"Sir, we can't--I mean, if we didn't--" stammered Wallis, leaving it too Cavanaugh to speak the correct words:

"None of us called them, sir," Cavanaugh explained. "All of us wanted to, but we couldn't. Not without your codes."

"What's wrong?" gasped Tripp. "Why isn't this good news?"

"Morigushi!" demanded the colonel, snatching Wallis' headset violently from the surprised lieutenant's head. He held the unit in his hand and spoke directly into its microphone pickup. "Who made the call?"

"_Nobody through me_," the pilot assured him.

Spaulding suddenly noticed the dinosaurs above the ceiling rafters, watching him. The sight of the leering monsters calmed him--reminded him of his vulnerability. When he continued his conversation, he spoke more quietly; using a tone hardly louder than a whisper.

"Then it was Corbin," the colonel concluded, still looking into the striped raptor's eyes.

"_Yes, sir,_" the pilot concurred.

"Goddamnit," the colonel quietly hissed.

"So what?" demanded Tripp, his already-frayed nerves pushed too far. "Corbin sent us help. What's the fucking problem with that?"

"And you didn't hear a thing?" demanded the colonel of the pilot, not acknowledging Tripp.

"_Not a peep_," Morigushi replied.

"Fucking shitbag!" Spaulding cursed, flailing his arm wildly and hurling the headset at a wall.

"What? What!" demanded Tripp, hysterically.

Suddenly Cavanaugh understood. He snapped his fingers: "Corbin took over…"

The colonel was pacing, nodding at Cavanaugh. He dragged his fingers across his stubby scalp, pulling at its spiny steel-grays. He wiped his wet sleeve across his eyes and mouthed a comment that must have been audible only within his own head.

Cavanaugh elaborated upon his realization for the benefit of poor, panicking Tripp:

"Nobody requested help," Cavanaugh said. "Corbin's taken over the military's jurisdiction."

And suddenly the meaning dawned upon the rest of them.

Spaulding announced it:

"We've been fired."

* * *

The hieroglyphs should have tipped her off--the words etched into the corridor's floor tiles. The writings in the arena had been coherent sentences, while the floor tiles in the corridor had been random characters. The corridor hieroglyphs hadn't symbolized anything whatever: They were a potpourri of mismatched language fragments that made no literal sense at all. It should have been enough of a warning to keep her out of the corridor--and yet, there she was, falling through the trick floor: A certifiable F-Minus at the Qawalynn Final Exam. 

Even so, it might not have been fair of her to judge herself so harshly. There was no way she could have known that the ground would fall completely away. Still, she should have known not to let Rainy come anywhere near her Qawalynn trials until after she was certain she was finished with them. And, as she fell away into the darker space below, she feared she might never learn what test she had just failed. But that was before she landed on the hot basalt threshold and realized that the etched corridor above had only been the gift-wrapping for the true obstacle: The vast, very-much-intact, series of platforms that then lay arrayed before her.

Where she had landed was the threshold to a series of three rope-suspended platforms, each approximately four feet thick and more than sixty feet wide and long. The platforms lay before her, each a step below the next, like a descending series of long, gigantic, steps; or an oddly declining suspension bridge. All around and below was a vast and terrible chasm. The ropes supporting the platforms had been tethered to the walls of the cavern, somehow. Twin pairs of ropes reached down obliquely from both walls to suspend the step-platforms together, slightly over-lapped. It was an ingenious construction, whatever its purpose.

Apart from the fine sculpturing of the platforms, the cavern was utterly raw, barren, and primordial. The chamber was illumined by the magma's undulating glow. Like the test of grace, the penalty for failing here, clearly, was falling into the underlying volcano's geologic maw. The air rose around her, sizzling ominously. Everything was cruel and awful. There was white-wall-illumination, but it came only from the marble-like stone from which the step-platforms themselves had been constructed. The cavern walls were black and brown or smoking red. The chamber was huge and bleak and terrible, with nothing but the step-platforms connecting her high-side to the opposite lower-side--where there was an open, obvious, exit.

So, if she wanted to get out, she would have to walk across.

It was as though the chamber had been modeled upon someone's imagining of Hell itself--with the cruelest of scenery and with no apparent escape routes. And the builder, though also insane, had been ingenious enough to make the madman-architect's fever-dream into Lara's sinister reality: These platforms, just as the break-away tiles up above, were covered with seemingly random, seemingly meaningless, two-foot square tiles of one isolated hieroglyph each.

"Lara! Lara!"

Lara had almost forgotten about Rainy at the sight of the fuming, gleaming masterpiece before her. She had almost forgotten, but not quite. There had been nothing she could have done for him. He was simply too far away--two-hundred feet away--on the opposite side of the great hieroglyphics-wasteland before her. She wished she could help, but there was nothing for her to do. Besides, his was the side with the exit. Even if he wasn't on the ground to make use of it.

Rainy was suspended high in the air above the step-platforms' opposite landing, clinging precariously to a horizontal support rope that connected two opposing twin suspension lines. He was kicking and flailing his tiny body in a desperate bid to improve his tenuous hold. He had already rolled his shoulders over the top to hug the rope, but his battered and exhausted, utterly unathletic, body seemed only barely up the task of swinging over its legs and securing itself there.

"Lara!"

"Save it!" Lara cried back, her tone making it clear that his yelling was a waste of his valuable breath. "I can't get to you."

Rainy seemed to understand, falling silent and redoubling his solitary efforts.

Lara would say nothing more to him until he had secured himself. It seemed better not to encourage him to look around. He might accidentally realize just how much higher he was then than she. Had Rainy fallen where Lara had fallen, he might have broken his comparatively frail legs; but if he were to fall from his present perch, few--if any--of his twelve-year-old bones would survive. There were more than eighty feet between his dangling toes and the unforgiving basalt landing. He had been lucky to catch that horizontal support line. Very lucky.

"Goddamn," the boy said, once he had climbed into a stable perch and could see the cavern for himself. He spoke only quietly, but the echo of his voice easily traversed the jagged, blackened walls. "What is this place?"

"My semester final," Lara said.

"Hope you studied."

"So do I."

"What are you supposed to do?"

"These are words," Lara said. "Like up above."

"Yeah?" replied Rainy. "What do they say?"

"Nothing. That's the problem, I think."

But when Lara slowly approached the front edge of the first platform, her assessment changed:

"Unless…"

Her hands went to her hips and she cocked her head in thought.

"What is it?" demanded Rainy, obviously realizing that Lara was about to do something incredibly foolish.

Across the front edge of each of the three platforms were ledges that had been inscribed with characters of a different quality and size than the random characters in the middle. Lara's eyes had settled upon the first platform's ledge and were following the characters from one side of the platform, laterally, to the other.

"Lara…"

"These make sense," Lara said.

"What do they say?"

"There's a lot of rubbish in this first part," Lara explained. "Praise of various gods; names of kings. This part looks like a quotation: 'Qawalynn'; then, maybe it says: 'different' or 'incorrect'. Next is 'titles'--or 'honors', perhaps. Here it says 'Qawalynn' again; and 'certainty' or 'fact'. And this last part says 'performance'. It's talking about behavior, probably."

"'Behavior'?" Rainy asked. "What's it mean?"

"I'm not sure," Lara replied, sighing. "And everything in the middle of the board is meaningless. It's like a gigantic word salad out there: 'Belief', 'Substance', 'Ideas', 'Pain', 'Fighting', 'Survival', 'Etiquette', 'Philosophy', 'Beauty', 'Eye Sight'--it just goes on and on."

"I'm going to see if I can work my way over to you," Rainy offered, and he began to inch toward the junction between his horizontal support-line and the obliquely vertical ropes leading down.

"No, don't!" said Lara.

"Why not?"

"Yours is the way out. Besides…"

Both Lara and Rainy could see where the smaller word-blocks from above had bombarded the larger word-blocks before them, sinking several a foot or more out of their places, giving the step-platforms a cankered-like surface in spots. It was clear that no one could walk across the board--that no one should stand upon it, and that no one should risk attempting to climb over it--for the risk of falling through and collapsing it.

"It's not the way the game is played," Lara stated.

"The game?" said Rainy. "You can't be serious! Kini isn't here, Lara. He's probably not even alive anymore."

"It isn't about Kini, Rainy," she said. "It's about me. It's about me and whatever is on the other side of this cavern."

"Don't you think it would be better to get over here the safe way?"

"What 'safe' way?" Lara replied. "If I try to climb over it, and the place is designed to keep me from getting across… These ropes are angled outward, Rainy. If they drop the puzzle and fall, they'll be laying flat against the walls. Assuming that I even survive when it falls! This was a game designed to be played, Rainy. I don't think I could cheat if I wanted to."

"I think you just don't want to," Rainy said wearily. "Do you?"

Lara had to think about it, but she didn't have to think long.

"No, Rainy. No I don't."

* * *

The second helicopter was identical to the first. 

The hulking newcomer cast its orange dusky shadow alongside its landed twin like a late-returning husband to the bed of his sleeping wife. It set down and blew away what little loose debris remained unscattered by its partner's last, long-ago, movements. The new crew chief disembarked and ran about his bird, checking and preparing and reporting. He was a frenetic counterpoint to the first's crewchief, who stood, leaning against his own bird, watching idly. Both the crewchief and the pilot of the first helicopter watched disapprovingly while the twenty or more crew and passengers of the second leaped out and began--in spite of their being coolly watched--to unload their gear upon the clearing.

Finally acknowledging the unhappy first crew, a single figure broke from the assembling group of second-helicopter passengers. He jogged from the dark of his helicopter's shadow into theirs, his hand on his head to secure his black softcap against the over-head rotor's pounding wind. The figure spoke to them gruffly, without as much as a greeting for courtesy. His name was Captain Blakely; and the pilot and crewchief already knew him altogether too well.

"Chief Morigushi," Blakely shouted over the wind. "You are relieved. Take your bird back to Staging Base Three, and wait there for orders."

"Just like that?" asked the crewchief, Sergeant Patterson.

"What do you want, Sergeant?" snapped Blakely. "A consolation prize? My men are taking over."

"You should have been here hours ago," Patterson said. "When they could have used you."

"We _couldn't_ be here hours ago," explained Blakely, unapologetically.

"You should have told us you were coming," added Morigushi. "This is bullshit."

"Well," said Blakely, "then it's 'bullshit' from on high, Chief. Look, you can stay here if you want to, but it won't do the colonel any more good than it will do me."

"You low-life piece of shit," Patterson cursed. "Colonel Spaulding's the best man we've got, and you fucked him. Hard."

"I didn't give the orders," Blakely said.

"But you obeyed them?" Patterson asked. "From fucking _Corbin_?"

"Fuck Corbin," Morigushi said. "_You_ should have called us. _You_, Captain Blakely."

"Fuck it," Blakely said, shrugging.

"You'll get yours," said Patterson. "You'll do no better down there."

"I'm way above it," said the captain smugly, glancing coyly--confidently--back toward where his men were busily unloading wooden crates and assembling their mechanical contents. "I'm _way_ above it."

* * *

"You're insane!" protested Rainy. 

But Lara was insistent.

She had found that the strip of characters displaying the coherent phrases was fixed and stable. She could stand upon it. At that point, she had realized that the coherent edge was a jumping-off point to begin a journey across the open character-table, toward the next strip of coherent characters--which should also, presumably, be just as safe to stand upon. From the displacement of the character blocks which had been struck by the floor-tiles from above, she could see that the character board was inherently unstable. But there had to be a safe way to cross. There had to be a pattern.

"The pieces will give without falling completely out," Lara tried to explain, standing with one foot solidly upon the stable strip while gingerly tapping at an uncertain block before her. "Those others didn't fall all the way through. I might be able to _feel_ my way across."

"What if _none _of them are stable?" asked Rainy, watching in apprehension from where he stood upon the horizontal rope, holding one of the outwardly-angled oblique support lines in his hands. "What if it's all just a trap?"

"I can't believe they would do all of this for nothing."

But the last four blocks had been unstable, and she was finding no better results in her current attempt.

"You're willing to bet your life on the forward thinking of a bunch of dead people?" pleaded Rainy. "If they were so smart, where'd they all go?"

"You're not giving them enough credit, Rainy," Lara said, only paying him partial attention. "I'm learning to have more and more respect for them all the time. I must seriously doubt they died from their own initiation rituals."

"Still," said Rainy, "you aren't going to make it across this thing by process of elimination!"

"About that much," Lara murmured, "you are right."

As she pushed each block downward, she was finding that each, in turn, was also pushing downward each previously displaced block. There was a cumulative number of mistakes the board was designed to allow her to make. Once she exceeded that number of mistakes, presumably, the entire board would collapse, and she would fail. And likely perish. Unfortunately, she couldn't guess how much further her margin for error extended.

"Lara, I'm begging you!" said Rainy. "You can't do this! There's no way that you can--"

"I can!"

The new block at Lara's toe held its ground.

"I did!"

She stepped triumphantly out upon the block. She jumped once--and then twice--just to be sure. Her jumping made Rainy wince, but Lara was smiling broadly.

"You were saying?" she said.

"You won't be happy until you're laughing down at me from Heaven, will you?"

"I like you Rainy," Lara replied. "You always see the bright side. Wait a moment--"

And Lara suddenly experienced a flash of insight. She double-checked the character engraved in the block beneath her feet, and then she span--haltingly--to re-read the strip of coherent characters now behind her. She pointed her finger at the line of hieroglyphs, muttering their phonetics quietly and urgently.

"What?" asked Rainy.

"'Vision'," said Lara, "this tile's character says 'vision'."

"So what?"

" 'Qawalynn', 'negative', 'names', 'duties', 'Qawalynn', 'qualities', 'actions'!"

"So? So what?"

"Qawalynn isn't a title, Rainy!" Lara proclaimed. "It says she's qualities and actions!"

"So?"

"Vision is a quality! Seeing is an action!"

"Oh…"

"That's the pattern!"

She then searched before herself with a fresh enthusiasm, as though the ground itself had become new again.

"'Future', 'Truth', 'Honesty'," she said.

"Well," interjected Rainy, "don't pick the one on the far left."

"Why not?"

"Because it's the fifth most commonly repeated character on the board. It's probably just a filler."

"You can see patterns in here?" growled Lara. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I didn't want to _encourage_ you."

* * *

"What do you mean, 'fired'?" demanded Tripp, "how can they fire us? What's that supposed to mean?" 

"The colonel is charge of the military side of the Project," said Cavanaugh. "If his reports said the operation in here was going fine, that should have been good enough. The only way Corbin could have gone around him would be if he took direct control."

"Which means Croft is out," said Wallis, eyeing the weary colonel cautiously.

"And we're left hanging," said Cavanaugh.

"What the _fuck _are you assholes talking about!" shrieked Tripp.

"We don't work for Corbin or the NSA, Tripp," said Cavanaugh. "We work for Special Projects. And Special Projects _controls _the NSA."

"They're _supposed _to," added Wallis.

"Clearly, not any more," Cavanaugh continued. "Corbin must have flipped the bureaucracy upside-down somehow. Do _you _work for Corbin?"

"Fuck no!" replied Tripp.

"Well, the new guys on their way in _do_," Cavanaugh said.

"They do now, anyway," said Wallis.

"Meaning: we're an inconvenience," said Cavanaugh

Added Wallis: "Meaning: we're _fired_."

"Meaning:" mocked Tripp, "so the fuck what? What do think they're going to do? Shoot us?"

There was a pregnant, ominous, pause.

"Come on!" moaned Tripp sarcastically.

"They won't kill us," said Wallis. "But unless we buy into their new order…"

Tripp scoffed. "So what? Fuck them."

"Okay," muttered Wallis, "maybe they'll shoot _you_."

Wallis turned away in bitter futility. Cavanaugh continued:

"You may not think it matters right now, Tripp," Cavanaugh said, "but think about it: Corbin's got the Project. Do you want to see _him_ in charge of everything?"

"Imagine what he'll do." It was Spaulding's first audible comment in minutes.

"Yeah, but what are we supposed to do about it?" said Tripp. "It's said and done."

"These things aren't decided on paper," said Cavanaugh. "They're decided by _action_."

"What do you mean?" asked Tripp.

Both Wallis and Cavanaugh hesitated. They deferred to the colonel, though they didn't expect him to answer. They were both surprised when he willingly admitted his responsibility for their predicament:

"Whoever gets the results keeps the job," said the colonel sullenly. "The military bureaucracy answered to the Executive Branch. That was _me_. My show. Corbin has the bureaucracy in his pocket now. He must have convinced them that I'm…_ineffective_. Somehow. So they gave _him_ the show. Unless I pull a miracle out of my ass, he keeps all the marbles. He's now the king of own little mountain. His own little Project."

"Are you saying he did all this while you've been _here_?" asked Tripp.

"Apparently," said the colonel.

"That's not fair," said Tripp.

"No," said the colonel, "it's not fair. It's politics."

"What are you going to do?" asked Wallis.

"'Do'?" asked the colonel. "I don't have anyone to appeal to, Lieutenant. Now that I'm out of the loop, there's nothing I can do or say about it. There's no higher power. This Project put the greatest amount of technological and military power in the smallest number of hands ever. And now its dropped from a _number_ of different hands to just _one_ pair. Jacob Corbin's."

"But how can that happen?" demanded Tripp, finally beginning to see the danger in these developments.

"If you threaten to the expose the most secretive and powerful men on Earth, a lot of very big things can happen very quickly," said Spaulding. "The Project really originates comes from people that I don't even know. Not even Corbin knows who they are. And no elected official has ever had any fucking idea. These are very rich and completely invisible people. They don't control anything directly, but when they want change, believe me, the Government changes. They have their fingers in everything. Our economics, our politics, our media…._Everything_. Maybe the Government could resist them if enough of the bureaucrats really wanted to, but it would probably unravel our whole way of life if they did. And this Project's the hottest property they've got. It has to stay secret; and whether that means bureaucratic control or private control doesn't make any difference to them. Croft wanted bureaucratic control, but if Corbin sent troops here on his own authority…. Well, obviously, Croft's been cut out somehow. So, from now on, no matter what Corbin decides to do next, there's not going to be any way to stop him. There's no bureaucracy mitigating his control over the Operations Force anymore. He can order them to do whatever he wants. By the time anyone figures out what he's planning….Well, God help us if he decides to do something stupid."

"Like all that paranoid bullshit he's been fussing about over the last few months," said Cavanaugh.

"Well," offered Tripp, "what about all those rich powerful people. Why don't so they do something?"

"Corbin's their golden boy," said Spaulding. "He always has been. They've been trying to get Croft and the rest of the bureaucracy out of his way for years. Now that I'm trapped here, and the whole mission's gone to shit, they've must have finally been able to get rid of them. Whatever happens, the Government's going to go along with Corbin. They won't have any fucking choice."

"There's got to be something we can do!" demanded Wallis.

"Like what?" said the colonel. "Do you have the girl or the kid? Do you know where to find the ILC? We failed, Lieutenant. _I_ failed. By the time we get out of here, it may already be too late to do anything about it in any case. He's consolidating his position. He already had a ton of supporters."

"Like Captain Blakely," said Cavanaugh, contemptuously.

"Just one of many," the colonel said. "A lot of people find Corbin's ideas very appealing."

"What's going to happen to us?" asked Tripp.

"To you?" said the colonel, "probably nothing. Go along with things. Just do what they tell you and you should be fine."

"What about you, sir?" asked Wallis.

The colonel sighed and let his eyes wander toward the strange cavern-ceiling-sky beyond the rafters. The fact of the dinosaurs being no longer there either didn't matter or simply did not distract him. He slowly shook his head and closed his eyes in tired acquiescence.

"Probably better that you don't know," he sadly said.

* * *

'Love' over 'grace' had been a difficult choice, but the trail from 'determination', to 'faith', and 'concern' had been obvious. 

With Rainy overseeing her progress and pointing out the characters most likely to have been randomly placed, Lara had made swift progress. But when she had come to last few blocks before the second segment's stable ledge, she and her advisor had struck a philosophical impasse.

"Look," said Lara, "it's not 'parentage'!"

"It is," insisted Rainy.

"One's parentage is one's title," said Lara, "and the answers aren't titles--they're qualities or actions!"

"I'm right," said Rainy.

"You are not…" Lara protested, letting her voice trail into a frustrated breath. In place of the rest of her thought, she protested by pointing at each of the tiles before her, repeating her translations for each:

"'Fortune!'"

"No."

"'Learning!'"

"No way."

"'Victory'!"

"Not sure about that one."

"'Sacrifice'!"

"Not a chance in hell."

"It is not 'parentage'!" Lara insisted.

"Look, Lara," Rainy said, "we're talking about statistical distribution, here. That one you're pointing at, whatever it says, is the only symbol that's not obviously a part of a random pattern."

"What about 'victory'?"

"Do you think it's 'victory'?"

"No!"

"Then…"

"It's not 'parentage'!" Lara said. "It must be 'sacrifice'."

"Don't do it, Lara!"

But it was too late, and Lara had already made her leap of misplaced faith.

"_Dumb bitch!_"

Whether Rainy had been correct or not became instantly immaterial. Whichever the case, Lara had been wrong--and the platform shattered. The 'sacrifice' tile slid out from its place as though from a greased slot, and the cavern exploded into a cacophonous roar. The entire ensemble trembled with a violent and furious release. It seemed like the entire game was over; but, although the entire network of rope-suspended platforms rocked and swayed, it was only the first-third--Lara's platform--that fell away.

But, by a feat of freakish speed and strength, Lara's legs managed to put her body into instant flight at the onset of the tremors. Her outstretched hands narrowly caught the ledge of the second platform. In a moment, she was pulling herself atop the second hieroglyph-marked ledge, shaking her head, and trying to remember how to practice the virtue 'humility' when, at the moment, all she could recall was its more applicable variant, 'humiliation.'

"'Parentage', eh?" she remarked, not quite yet able to raise her eyes to his.

"Next time--" growled Rainy.

"I'll listen! I promise."

Rainy sighed.

"What's next?" he asked.

* * *

He hadn't been able to find a secret way in to the Ugly Things' nest, but Stripes wondered if he hadn't discovered a secret way _out_. 

The Ugly Things had multiplied in their little haven beneath the white-wall branches. From only a few dangerous, pain-inflicting, delicious-looking temptations, there had suddenly become many more dangerous, pain-inflicting, delicious-looking temptations. It made his insides rumble unhappily. He wished he were far away, where hunting was less of a chore.

It was perhaps those nagging hunting-thoughts that had made his sharp eyes lock on the little bubbles wiggling their way across the white-wall stream in the floor of the Ugly Thing's nest. They were like little slipperies, fast and agile, winding their ways from the center of the white vapory mess in the center of the nest floor, moving outward toward….

Toward nothing.

Toward the wall of the white-walled nest and gone.

Where did the little slipperies-like bubbles go?

Stripes followed the direction they had gone when they had vanished, trying to imagine where they would be if they were still visible, still moving in the direction they had been moving. They must have gone somewhere. And, as he approached the huge, white, not-hurting smoke-plume that was rising in the distance, his little mind made the evolution-producing leap of logic that if something can get out of a place through a certain way, then surely something elseshould be able to use that same way to get back in.

* * *

"Any advice from the peanut gallery?" asked Lara, standing at the second strip of coherent, stable characters, looking down over the table of random hieroglyphs before it and before the next platform beyond it. 

"Well," said Rainy, "you took out a third of my data set, Lara."

"You have to keep reminding me," she quietly protested. "Don't you have a photographic memory? I thought all you code-breaking types did."

"Of course I do."

"Then what are you complaining about? Lead on, gallant scholar."

"You amaze me, you know that?" said Rainy. "You nearly get yourself killed, and you _still _can't be serious about anything."

"Maybe I'm crazy," said Lara, "but I just can't seem to get worked up over one more little near-death experience. Not after the day _I've_ had."

"Tell me about it."

"Well?"

"Why don't we start with the clue," Rainy said. "I can see some possibilities here, but it might be better to know what we're looking for."

"Okay," Lara said, looking down and reading the track. "'World'; 'game'; 'god' or 'gods'; 'competition'--though it may be 'sportsmanship' or 'play'; here's my favorite: 'Qawalynn'; 'victory' (or 'triumph', maybe); 'Qawalynn' again, and 'defeat'. What do you think?"

"Well, obviously," said Rainy sarcastically, "it means that….Shit, Lara, how the fuck am I supposed to know it means? That's your job."

Lara began to reread, translating for meaning. She didn't get far before interrupting herself:

"'The gods, they--'" she began. "Wait a minute! Bean said this!"

"What?" asked Rainy, suddenly more interested than before.

"'The gods are finished playing the game'!" she exclaimed.

"And?"

"'Qawalynn wins'!"

"Well, okay!" said Rainy happily.

"'Qawalynn _loses_'."

"Uh-oh," he then murmured. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Could it mean that the puzzle had no solution? Could it mean that Lara and Rainy had been lured away from safety only to be destroyed out in the open where they would be helpless? Could the puzzle they had ruined be the only puzzle Lara could win? Had Lara already lost? Could this elaborate construction be simply the outgrowth of some ancient sadist's wicked sense of humor? It worried both of them. Rainy became suddenly quiet. Lara froze.

"Lara..!"

The tension was beginning to rattle him. He was beginning to panic.

"Don't worry, Rainy, it's okay!" Lara said.

But Rainy demanded some sort of consolation.

"Lara..!"

"They wouldn't have drawn me out this far if there weren't any way to finish," reasoned Lara, clearly attempting to console _herself_ as well.

"You don't know that!" protested Rainy,

"It isn't just a trap!"

"But what does it mean?"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" said Lara. "Don't panic! Let's look at the tiles! Let's see our choices."

"Point them out," demanded Rainy.

Lara walked along the edge, pointing as she moved.

"'Existence', 'fear', 'proof', 'action', 'giving', 'examining', 'instruction', 'sophistication', 'fortune', 'grieving', 'pleasure', 'understanding', 'begging', 'destruction', 'ancientness', 'ascendance', 'discernment', 'prominence', 'opportunity', 'sequence', 'safety', 'eternity', 'youth', 'death', 'life', 'journey', 'solution', 'leadership', 'cross-over', 'certainty'."

"Some of them we've seen before," said Rainy, his voice losing its panicked warble as he found himself comfortably distracted in mental labor.

"Yes," Lara concurred, hearing Rainy's new calm and struggling to find one of her own.

"Rule out: 'fear', 'fortune', 'leadership', and 'death'," Rainy said.

"That leaves a lot of other possibilities!"

"I know!" Rainy said. "Give me a second."

"'Qawalynn wins; Qawalynn loses'," she whispered. "What could it mean?"

Both paused, sighed, and considered the possibilities.

"What about reverse deductive reasoning," suggested Rainy. "What _doesn't_ it mean?"

"Well," said Lara, "it's not talking about 'age' or 'youth'."

"I'll go along with that."

"It is talking about the gods, though," Lara continued. "So it might be 'existence' or 'proof'."

"Why 'proof'?" asked Rainy.

"Because Qawalynn's job is to appease the gods," Lara said. "She's looking for proof of their anger."

"She's looking for a lot of things!" Rainy whined disparagingly, back-sliding into panic. "You might as well say she's looking for a nice make-over and a wax-job!"

"Well, I don't know!"

"Look, you're stuck out there, Lara!" Rainy cried. "There's no way back to solid ground anymore!"

"Don't you think I realize that, Rainy?"

"Well, concentrate, will you!" Rainy said. "Start from scratch. What could it mean?"

She shook her head slowly: "I don't know."

Rainy sighed angrily and hissed in incredulous disbelief.

"'The gods are through playing', Lara," Rainy said, attempting to jog her thought processes. "'Qawalynn wins or loses'."

"Wait a minute," said Lara. "What did you just say?"

"The gods are through--"

"No, not that!"

"'Qawalynn wins, Qawalynn loses'."

"No, that's not what you said!" Lara exclaimed. "Thank God you _don't_ have a photographic memory; and thank God I do! You said she 'wins or loses'."

"So what?"

"What did Bean say?" Lara contemplated aloud. "Ah, yes. 'The gods made up the rules. People can't change them. You don't die because you try to follow the rules and can't, you die because you're too damned scared to just break them.'"

"Sounds like the words of Grampa Crackpot to me."

"He said that when you play only to win, all there is for you is to lose," Lara continued.

"Enlightening," said Rainy sarcastically. "Useless, but--"

"The way the gods play, you can't be scared to lose," Lara said. "The rules don't matter. Life's just play!"

"You thrill me with your insight," Rainy said. "So what?"

"Don't you see?" Lara asked. "'Qawalynn wins or Qawalynn loses'--its already decided! There's no point in worrying!"

"I think I'll keep worrying, but thank you."

But Lara was already marching determinedly along the word ledge, watching for a particular spot and a particular character.

"How does that quaint American television commercial say it?" she murmured, finding her place--and stepping out.

"_Lara!_"

"'Just Do It'," Lara said, curtsying proudly, standing on the first correct puzzle block. "'Action'. This is the one that says 'action'."

"Congratulations, Lara," Rainy said, his true anger mightily suppressed. "You just made me ten years older. Now I'm old enough to drink. Thank God. I need one."

* * *

It was amazing. 

Floating in a raft at the foot of a waterfall under the red sky of a natural cavern biosphere!

He had never seen anything like it. Of course, no one had; but the cool, analytical description of the place he had read on his preliminary site report hadn't done the place any justice whatever. It was a jungle inside of a cave--with a 'sun' and everything! It was astonishing! If not for his being so busy leading the mission, he would want to take some pictures--not so he could show them to anyone, since he wouldn't be allowed to, but simply for the sheer thrill of knowing that the evidence would then exist!

"Captain Blakely," said his assistant Mission Commander, Lieutenant Vlarnoff, "Colonel Spaulding on the line."

Blakely switched his cordless headset to the proper setting.

"Colonel," said the in-coming Mission Commander. "Like your place, here."

"_Like it?_" said the out-going Mission Commander, "_you're going to love it._"

"As much as you did, I'm sure," said Blakely. "Thanks for the rigging on the falls and the shoreline. It will sure come in handy getting in and out of here."

"_Let's just get one thing straight, Captain_," said Spaulding. "_I don't know what Corbin promised you, but my men and our expertise are not for sale. I_--"

"Well then let me get something straight with you, _Colonel_," interrupted Blakely contemptuously. "I didn't come here to compete with you _or_ cooperate with you. I'm here simply to clean up your mess."

"_My mess?_" growled Spaulding. "_That idiot, Corbin_--"

"Save it, Colonel," said Blakely. "You've already proved your incompetence."

"'_My incompetence_'"

"Did you request a ground-water diagram?" boasted the captain. "Did you secure the beach-head? No. But I have. I'm in charge now. Consider yourself relieved. _Colonel_."

"_Lara Croft_--"

"Lara Croft?" snapped Blakely with an icy chuckle. "Is a twenty-year-old _girl_."

"_Enough!_" snapped the colonel.

Blakely was willing to listen. He paused to let the old man say his piece.

"_Corbin is playing you_," the colonel said. "_He's been playing all of us. You are a pawn in a big political game. He never told me he was sending you! If I had known, I would have secured the beach-head. Did you think I wanted to bring all of my people down into here? I would have_--"

"'Would've', 'could've'," chuckled Blakely. "Look, Colonel, you couldn't catch a _girl! _You couldn't catch a goddamned _little girl!_"

The colonel's voice paused. Blakely had obviously defeated him. He heard the old man sigh.

"_Once you meet her_," the colonel's voice said--strangely matter-of-factly--"_you'll never say that again._"

"I'm sure," Blakely said.

"_When's your ETA?_"

"Sooner than you probably think. See you then. Blakely, out."

Blakely switched the radio channel away from whichever one through which the colonel had been calling him.

Corbin had warned him that the colonel might not want to go along with this. It was his own folly. There were changes coming. Big changes. The colonel had better decide to go along with things or he was going to wind up pushed aside. Maybe permanently. The old man was making his own bed; even if it would be Blakely who was under orders to make him sleep in it. It was a glorious future coming. Glorious. And it couldn't begin too soon.

"Vlarnoff?" Blakely said.

"Sir?" his lieutenant replied.

"Divert the troops to that clearing over there," he ordered, pointing toward a sandy shore nearby. "Break out the X920's. Let's get this party started."

* * *

If the first platform had been treacherous, and the second had been arduous, the third was outright agonizing. 

It had seemed straight-forward enough at first. The clue words had read: 'gods', 'hatred', 'privilege', 'Qawalynn', 'hatred', 'the world', 'cinders', 'transformation'. Lara thought it must be asking for her to find words that mean the opposite of 'hate'--words that entail love, peace, equity, fairness, justice.

But she had been wrong.

Rainy had assured her that 'love' was not the correct tile. She had trusted him, and indeed, the correct choice had been 'purpose.' Next she was confronted by a choice between 'victory' and 'sacrifice', and while that choice had been easy enough, being then forced to chose 'logic' over 'life' had been almost painful to her.

And the pain was only beginning.

Next had come choice of 'blessing' over 'respect'; of 'faith' over 'truth'; of 'appearance' over 'honor'; and finally, of 'present'--over both 'past' _and_ 'future'. And yet none of these agonies compared to the final one. Rainy's answer couldn't be right. She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't accept it. No matter Rainy's statistical logic, it couldn't possibly be correct. It couldn't _possibly_ be.

The proper tile read 'justice'. That was the correct one. That was the one she wanted to choose.

But Rainy said the answer to the puzzle must be 'passivity'.

The battle raged quietly, over long minutes. Between Lara and Rainy. Between Lara and Lara.

There was no way to avoid making this choice. The landing before the exit door, where Rainy now safely stood, was still too far away to jump. This most agonizing of obstacles was a choice she was going to have to make, even though the options paralyzed her.

"No," Lara quietly maintained. "You're wrong. You're wrong! Rethink it."

"Come on, Lara," Rainy cooed seriously. "You've made it this far. It's only a game."

"'Justice'," Lara insisted, "you can not have peace without justice!"

"It's just a game, Lara."

"I make my stand against you, Rainy!" Lara shouted. "Here's where I draw the line."

"Lara!" Rainy said. "Don't get hysterical! It's only a game! It's an ancient game by an ancient society of crazy people who probably used to eat their own children! For Christ's sake! I'm sure I'm right about this. As sure I was about 'parentage'. As sure as I've ever been today. Have I been wrong yet? Have I ever been wrong when I've been this _sure_?"

"No," Lara quietly, sadly admitted.

"Then trust me," Rainy said. "Step on 'passivity' and let's put this behind us. Come on. You can do it. I know you can. Come on."

Lara almost took the step. Almost. But then she hesitated. For the third time.

"But," said Lara.

"Lara…"

"Your grandfather didn't die in the name of being passive!" She proclaimed. "The Ingu people weren't slaughtered that I should chose passivity over justice! That bastard didn't _rape_ me that I should be _passive_! I will not be _passive _when Jacob Corbin tries to kill me again! I will not be _passive _when that colonel--!"

But she stopped talking. She went awkwardly quiet. She stopped breathing for a moment, and felt a sob come up into her belly.

"Come on," Rainy said. "One last step, Lara. One last step."

Lara almost stepped. Hesitated. Stopped.

She looked at Rainy's face.

He pitied her.

She could see it in his young, innocent eyes. Though innocent, she knew his eyes had seen enough of this world to know what was pitiable in another human being. But there was no way he could be right about this. _No way_.

She chose her own correct answer.

She stepped on 'justice'.

After the next few seconds, after the platform had collapsed beneath her misplaced weight, after she had barely been able to leap those extra few feet to reach safety alive--after she been proven wrong, and 'passivity' proven right--she found she could say nothing. All she could do was climb to stable footing on the solid basalt landing, and walk through the open door before her, and leave the Qawalynn trials behind.

And she would say nothing to Rainy for a long, long time.

* * *

Why wasn't he dead? 

Was there some cosmic reason for it?

He was reminded of his readings in his college philosophy class about Buddhist hells. Places where tormented souls are sent after living inadequate lives. These were hells that were full of bodily tortures and personal demons; but there was always an _end_. You were always reborn. You could always go on to something new.

Why wasn't he dead?

Hadn't the hellish vapors burned him enough? Even if the water's seeming heat had turned out to be only a bizarrely contradictory illusion--_feeling_ burning hot though actually icy cold. Hadn't he choked, screamed, writhed, desperately clawed at passing walls, been thrown from reservoirs, through channels, down drains, through passages--hadn't he been through enough?

Hadn't the spiders who had been with him in the fountain shaft already died?

Wasn't the raptor that had been swept in after him already dead?

Hadn't Sydwinsky, whom he passed on the way through to this awful place, hadn't _he_ been granted his merciful death?

So why was Doc alive?

Why was there so much pain?

He wailed. He was in agony. This was hell. It was pure torment. This was the condition of the damned soul. No seminar, no theology course, no Sunday school class could have prepared him for it. This was the end.

This was Doc's end.

If only his fingers would just _let go_ of the corner of the canal intersection and let his body be swept away. If only his mind would relinquish this illusion it insisted on calling 'life'. This was not life! There was no way that _this_ could be life. It wasn't living. This was something _else_.

If only he had other choices besides torture or death.

If only there were a way to choose between them.

Why did _he_ have to choose?

This was hell!

Why wasn't he dead?

* * *

'_Gods', 'hatred', 'privilege', 'Qawalynn', 'hatred', 'world', 'cinders'. _What did it mean? 

The passageway from the step-platforms led out to a very strange place. Strange for its being so very _not_ strange.

Like the complex machinery of the Underworks rope-and-gears cube so far above, this place was efficient, ingeniously conceived, and exquisitely functional. It was clearly the sewer of this incredible pyramid: It's deepest, lowest bowels. All the water from the structure's immense hydraulic machinery was being siphoned through these waterways. All of the water pouring through the pyramid was winding its way through these coursing, intersecting channels. Canals of white-water fury ripped in from around bends in passages, or poured down from ceiling portals. All of this water, everything that bled from the cavern lake, was harnessed, redirected, and controlled _here_. It all came through this place, and ran alongside her walkpath. It all raced through this or one of the many other canals--canals that she could see via intersecting corridors, or that she could sense via the pulsing of their incredible vibrations through the walls. And they all seemed to be converging on a single location, at the center of the internetworked sewer lines--at the lowest, centermost, point of these under-pyramid spaces. She walked that way, toward that center. Toward that place where all of her waters combined into something that the ancients had wanted her to see.

The Qawalynn trials had led her here. Her entire life had led her here.

She walked that way, and she thought about

_Passivity._

And _Justice_.

The canals were narrow and deep and incredibly treacherous. The passages that roofed them were composed of tall, gleaming, brightly polished white-walls. They were well-designed for pedestrians such as herself. Their walkpaths sat high along each canal, and there were even bridges traversing the canal intersections. The stresses of the constantly shifting water volumes were buffered by perpendicularly-placed reservoir-alcoves that trapped spill-off from the canals and helped keep the water-pressures in check. These complex, baffling, and effervescent canal passages were a white-wall-illuminated, white-water-circulating, endlessly spiraling maze. It continuously forced the water inexorably centerward, where the converging, congealing, confluencing rapids were finding some awful, final, destination.

A destination also for Lara--for Qawalynn.

Just beyond a bend. One last bend.

'_Gods', 'hatred', 'privilege', 'Qawalynn', 'hatred', 'world', 'cinders'._

'Cinders_'_!

'Hatred'!

'Qawalynn'!

Wasn't the meaning obvious? For Qawalynn, hatred turns the world to ash!

'_Don't let them make you hate_' Bean had said.

So... What had been her error?

Why had 'love' been wrong?

Why had 'truth' been wrong?

Why had 'life' been wrong?

Why not 'justice'?

_How_ could 'justice' be wrong?

'_Gods', 'hatred', 'privilege'._

She was approaching the convergence point. She could see three separate canals intersecting upstream, up-corridor. Together they formed the one large canal that flowed past her and into that mysterious place, just out of sight, around the corner.

She could hear Rainy Hedgebrook behind her on her path, becoming ironically more noisy in a clumsy attempt to exercise stealth. She could sense his trying not to be seen; as through he were shrinking from the eyes of some judgmental observer. He was pretending that he couldn't see something that was laying plain and obvious before him. Before them both.

'_Gods', 'hatred', 'privilege'._

How could 'justice' not be the correct answer? If it's hate that turns the world to ash--Qawalynn's hate--then what of Qawalynn's justice? Does not Qawalynn's justice bring good to the world?

'_Qawalynn', 'hatred', 'cinders'._ What did it mean?

She could see what Rainy was shrinking from plainly, now--though she tried to look away.

She could hear it, too.

There were dead bodies in the wash.

A spider. A raptor. A---

She could feel Qawalynn's justice, satisfied, burning inside of her. Burning?

She could feel Lara Croft's---

A _man_.

Justice.

But_...burning?_

"Lara?"

It was Rainy's voice. She had stopped walking. He wanted her to move on.

Move on, despite.

Despite what she could see

_A dead man._

A dead evil man who deserved what he got.

Who deserved the torture that was apparent in his dead eyes.

Who deserved worse.

She could feel--

_Qawalynn's justice._

_Deserves worse? Where is the end of worse? What is the worst 'worse' can be? Who gets to decide?_

Lara Croft's _hatred._

What she could hear was a living cry.

A living man.

A living man who also deserved..._worse_.

Rainy tugged at her sleeve.

Move on, Lara_. Move on, Qawalynn._

'_Gods', 'hatred', 'privilege', 'Qawalynn', 'hatred', 'world', 'cinders'._

She couldn't go on. She couldn't pretend.

She couldn't just ignore.

She understood.

It had been said once in a different set of writings, in a different people's religion:

"_Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord_."

'_Hatred is the privilege of the gods'._

Justice _burning_?

For a mortal, what is the difference between justice and hate? For Qawalynn, what is the difference? Justice fails. Justice lies. Justice can _be_ hatred in disguise. Hatred is the privilege of the gods. For Qawalynn, there must be passivity; or there will be the intoxicating temptation to, instead of justice, nurture hate--its bastard changeling. She must be passive, and find faith in the sure vengeance of God. For when Qawalynn hates--because she is Qawalynn--the world turns to ash.

So, what Lara felt was not justice.

Justice can't _burn_.

Rainy cried and protested, but Lara went back and rescued Doc.

* * *

Colonel Spaulding, Cavanaugh, Wallis, Tripp, and Kini, all waited despondently; clinging to their weapons.

They were waiting for a call. Or a sign.

But when one came, it wasn't the one they were expecting at all:

"_Op Leader, this is Doc._"

Cavanaugh was on his feet in a split second, thrilling with surprise and joy: "Doc?"

The colonel asked: "Where are you, son?"

"_I'm on my way up_," Doc replied.

"How?" asked Spaulding. "There _is_ no way up. The shaft is flooded!"

"_It's okay, sir_," Doc said. "_I've got the key to the doors down here. It's not a problem. And sir, I've got her. And I've got the kid, too. We're all on our way up_."

Spaulding was speechless.

Absolutely speechless.


	26. Chapter Twenty Five: Heir To The Throne

"_Washed of animosity_

_Naked truth falling_

_Black or white_

_You are turning_

_To the light_

_There is nothing I can't be_

"_Bare bones! Bare bones!_

_I've been to hell_

_And I'm back--Stripped to the bone_

_I've been to hell_

_Now I'm back _

_And I'm taking all I want!_

"_Bare bones!_

_Bare bones!_

_Bare bones!_"

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:** **"**Heir to the Throne.**"**

Dumb bitch!

Dumb bitch!

_Dumb bitch!_

She was the most brilliant person he had ever met. She was possibly one of the most intelligent people in the world--today or ever. She could fight like the Devil himself: killing and facing death without as much as a shrug or hesitation. She had calculated, strategized, and brutally battled her way through a military slugfest against at least twenty of the hardest and best trained soldiers in the world, and had been personally responsible for the deaths of at least half of them. If this last soldier had been standing in her path rather than safely drowning, pathetically out of her way, she would most certainly have been the one who had personally placed him in that predicament--perhaps without even the benefit of still being conscious to tread the water.

What the hell had possessed her? Didn't all of those loose-rolling I.Q. points in her damned fool head tell her that he wouldn't just say: 'hey, thanks for the hand up, honey' and let her go? She knew these people! Just as well or better than he had known them! Hadn't they murdered the Indians? Hadn't they tried a million times over to murder her? And Rainy himself? And didn't she mention something about a rape? Could they have raped her, too? If _that _hadn't been enough..…

And hadn't they murdered Grandpa?

Hadn't they?

And she saved him. Pulled his sorry ass right out of the water. Hadn't she seen the submachinegun still hanging around his shoulder and neck? Hell, she'd used that very strap to help pull him up from the canal! And when he pointed that gun at her, what had she done? She just stood there and obeyed. **_Obeyed!_**

Where the hell was Lara Croft? Where the hell was she? And what the hell was this _thing_ here in her place?

* * *

Blakely was on top of the world. In fact, he was above it--_way _above it.

The X920's were a lunatic idea, but they actually worked. The Project had taken a simple two-man 'gyro' mini-helicopter, armed it to the teeth, and had rigged it with an engine that somehow never ran out of fuel. A little conventional wisdom, a lot of imagination, and an incredible source of inexhaustible energy, and there the Operations Force had it: The best medium-range aerial patrol vehicle in any military anywhere. It was slower than a helicopter, certainly; and its flight ceiling was far lower than a conventional birds', but it was too small to show up on radar, and with the incorporation of the Project's experimental power system, it could maintain itself in flight almost indefinitely. It could even hold itself stable enough in air to fire its enormous anti-tank missiles in flight!

Blakely had arranged with Jacob Corbin to have X920s for his phase of the mission. After all of the impossible dangers the first group had reported (the thousands of aggressive, incredibly tough animals, most notably) Blakely had figured he would do far better to by-pass the jungle entirely if it were possible. Besides, the way on foot was long; and, by reports, the white water between the mainland and the target area was virtually impassable. His mission wasn't to pound bush or to conquer the untamed wild; his mission was to clean up after an incompetent former commanding officer--and if Spaulding's team didn't have the means to escape the cavern without the rafts Blakely wasn't bringing...well, that was too bad, wasn't it? This wasn't a rescue mission, after all.

If Spaulding and his favorites all died here, well...

It was probably just as well.

* * *

"We've got a badly injured man here," Spaulding said into his radio. "If you're coming in X920s--"

"_I am_," interjected Blakely's arrogant voice.

"--then you could air-evac him out of here."

"_I could_."

"_Will _you?"

"_Sure, Colonel_," said Blakely. "_Assuming I can spare the man to fly_."

"Shit, I'll fly it myself if that's a problem," hissed Tripp.

"Shut up, Tripp," the colonel commanded, flatly.

"_I'm coming into range of the island_," said Blakely. "_I can see the white structure now_."

"Good," said the colonel. "Go ahead and land on the roof of the highest building."

"_Buildings?_" gasped Blakely incredulously.

"Trust me," the colonel assured him. "We're on the top floor. There'll be a rope to get in."

"_Roger that_," the captain replied. "_ETA any minute. Blakely_--"

The colonel turned him off before he had even finished logging off the line.

"You didn't tell them about the dinosaurs," said Wallis.

"Yeah?" scoffed the colonel. "Well, let them figure out that part for their fucking selves."

Tripp chuckled morosely.

"Speaking of…." said Cavanaugh. "Have you seen them? Our house guests. They've been gone awhile."

"Good fucking riddance," said the colonel.

"But Doc--" said Cavanaugh.

"I know, soldier," the colonel said in a sharp, chastising, and deeply annoyed tone. "Doc?"

"_Roger, sir,_" said Doc's disembodied voice.

"ETA?"

"_Pretty soon, sir. We're already at the_--"

"Watch for raptors when you get up here, son."

"_Sir?_"

Cavanaugh interjected: "Our eavesdroppers went MIA."

"_No shit?_"

"No shit," said the colonel. "Watch yourself. Out."

* * *

_Qawalynn wins, Qawalynn loses; the gods are done playing._

Where she had no choice but to deny the hate that would have let him die, she also had no choice but to follow her instinct to obey him rather than fight. There was the MP5 to consider, and there was Rainy's life as possible collateral damage as well; but it hadn't been fear or caution that had made her choose captivity instead of resistance. She could have dispensed with Doc at any time. She could have knocked him unconscious and left him in place. She could have taken his weapon from him and forced him to retreat. She could have dumped him right back into the water from which she had lifted him. It all would have been easy, and it all would been very gratifying after watching him pull his gun on the very woman who had just saved his miserable life. But when Doc had pointed his weapon, and had spoken into his radio, and she had heard the colonel's tiny radio voice say:

"_Doc, listen to me: Don't screw it up! Get her up here. Hurry up! Double--Triple--time it!"_

The sound of the colonel's anxious voice had struck her not with worry, since she had been shrived of fear, shrived of hate, and shrived of impatience. Instead, Lara had found herself undyingly curious about what was really going on in these tunnels. Why such urgency? What was this 'Singularity'? Who were these men in black? Why was their device, her idol, so terribly, terribly important? She might have had the Project's hacker, Rainy, to answer some of those questions (those which he was willing to address), but only the soldiers knew the _full_ truth; so it was only the soldiers who could answer her questions and soothe her burning curiosity. Before she would be willing to leave this place, before she could go on with her mission, she intended to learn the answers to these questions.

And finally--_finally_--she was no longer afraid to ask them.

* * *

Spaulding was by the window; watching, listening. Waiting.

"This is it, gentlemen," he said.

Cavanaugh, Wallis, and Tripp were listening carefully, knowing what the colonel was about to say. They were holding back their qualms and suppressing their compunctions in preparation for having to hear it--and having to obey it. None of them were Rico or Henrick--none of them were monsters--but they all knew their duty. Kini was the only one who didn't know exactly what the colonel was about to order, but even Kini was gritting his teeth in preparation for Lara Croft's arrival--if for different reasons and with different intentions: The native's hand was already resting on the hilt of his knife.

"It's the opportunity we've been waiting for," the colonel continued, turning to face them. "When she arrives, we may only have a few minutes to get what we need from her. We have to get the ILC before Blakely gets it. Even if we have to rip it out of her ass! You understand what I'm asking of you, don't you?"

When none immediately responded, however, the colonel began to address each of them directly, examining their eyes, their souls, and their loyalties:

"Wallis?"

"I'm with you, Colonel," Wallis said unhesitatingly. "Wherever it leads."

The colonel nodded gratefully.

Tripp volunteered: "Shit, might be nice to see someone else besides me in pain for once. Especially that fucking bitch."

"Cavanaugh?" asked the colonel.

Cavanaugh opened and closed his mouth. He sighed and finally said: "If it'll stop Corbin, sir, but..."

Finally, Kini had heard enough:

"What you want, she cannot give," Kini said.

"Why not?" asked Wallis.

"She destroyed it."

"That's impossible," said Wallis. "I'm still getting readings from it, I--"

"I saw her," stated the native coldly.

"Why would she destroy it?" asked Cavanaugh. "Why would she drag it all the way down here just to destroy it? It's the only evidence she has! It doesn't make any sense."

"I think you were fooled, Kini," said the colonel.

"I was not," Kini said.

"We'll find out when she gets here," the colonel said. "One way or another, she'll tell us what she did with it."

"Yes, she will," said Tripp, emphatically.

"You will not touch her," Kini countermanded, coldly. "None of you will touch her."

"What are you talking about?" asked Wallis. "Why not?"

"She is mine."

The American soldiers suddenly felt as though an invisible force-field had begun to flow through the chamber. It was as though a tangible divide had just descended between the Americans and the angry, muscular native--a divide of differing perspectives, motives, and interests. Where common interests might once have formed a basis for an alliance between them, there was now nothing flowing through the room between them but indifference, division, and mutual contempt. And, even though the Americans greatly outnumbered Kini, his presence still filled them all with an unaccountable dread.

"Look, Kini," said the colonel, turning to face him. "I think we've been more than generous with you."

The colonel moved slowly--as though Kini were a viper, and Spaulding was inching his way out his striking range. He was trying to lure Kini into a relative corner--into the space behind the fountain--while he placed himself outside of his soldiers' line-of-fire.

"You tried to kill me down there," the colonel reminded him. "But I let it go. I understand how angry you are with Lara Croft, but we need her right now. I know what you think you saw--"

"I 'think' I saw?" Kini snarled.

"--but we need to be _sure_," Spaulding said. "I promise you can have her after we're done, but--"

Kini shouted: "You will not touch her!"

"Kini," the colonel warned him, his voice calm, though his patience had all but worn through, "the fact is, I don't _need _you anymore."

Kini sneered: "I _never _needed you."

The colonel was quick drawing his pistol, but Kini was quicker. In a flash, even before Spaulding's hand had fully clasped the pistol grip of his 9mm, Kini was behind him and grabbing his shoulders, the blade of his razor-sharp hunting knife pressed painfully against the old colonel's throat. None of the other soldiers could respond quickly enough to intervene--the native had moved like black lightening. While the skin of the colonel's throat oozed small samples of the death Kini's face threatened was coming to him, the others could do nothing but raise their weapons a moment too late, and aim at the colonel himself--now hoisted up as Kini's living shield.

"Kini…Kini…" Cavanaugh cooed, trying to placate what he figured must be a desperate, terrified man. "Put down the knife. Look, we can work this out."

"Where do you think you're going to go, Kini?" snarled the colonel with what little air he could force through his half-pinched windpipe. "There's no way out of here but with us!"

"'Go'?" hissed Kini contemptuously.

"Kini," Cavanaugh growled, finally beginning to understanding the mindset of the man he was facing, "if you kill the colonel, we'll kill you. It's as simple as that. Don't do this."

"She is mine," said Kini.

"This is stupid!" snapped Wallis, anxiously glancing through the window, backward, over his shoulder, hoping not to see a glimpse of Doc and his prisoners on the city street--if they arrived just then, it would only cause further complications. "Come on! They're going to be here any minute! Cavanaugh?"

"Kini," Cavanaugh growled; scolding, warning.

"You do not matter," hissed the native. "You will _all_ die."

"We'll see," said the colonel.

And as though upon cue, the street-side platform lift suddenly lurched into motion, descending, leaving a gaping, ten-foot square hole in the floor in the corner of the room behind Cavanaugh, Tripp, and Wallis. Wallis was quick to respond to the descent of the lift, turning and leaning over the edge in hopes of direct eye-contact with Doc and his prisoners. He was, clearly, earnestly, about to warn them away; about to order them to stay below, but the colonel could read Wallis' unspoken intent, and he corrected him:

"Wallis, no," the captive colonel grunted. "Let them up."

"The more the merrier," whispered Tripp tautly.

When the lift arrived, it brought Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook, with Doc and his gun at their backs.

They went wide-eyed at what they arrived to.

All of them, that is, save Lara; whose expression was placidly calm. She seemed to be examining the room and its impending violence with a sober but unruffled curiosity. The colonel found her unbreaking ice disturbing and disheartening. In ways, it angered him more than all the knives and weapons and betrayals Kini or any other of his own soldiers could have wielded upon him. It hurt his pride. He wanted her to be afraid--or at least _disturbed_--by the mood of chaos surging about them. Instead, her first change in expression was to an easy, amused, and arrogant smirk.

By contrast, however, the scene took Doc entirely by surprise:

"What the fuck is _this_?" Doc gasped.

"Looks to me like a happy little family reunion," said Lara, stepping easily from the lift platform, disregarding the gun at her back.

"Stop where you are, Lady Croft!" warned Cavanaugh, hesitating to switch the aim of his weapon from Kini to Lara. Instead, he directed Wallis to aim at her, shaking his head at him and nodding nervously at her. He obeyed; but Lara still continued touring the room, placing her hands upon her hips in a haughty poise of authority and displeasure.

"Nice to see you too, Cavanaugh," she said.

"Stand still, Lara, goddamnit," growled Doc--though his voice lacked sufficient fierceness. "Or I _will _put a bullet in you."

"No you won't, Mister MP5," Lara sighed, casually.

"Yeah?" growled Doc, annoyed and offended, but clearly feeling more anxious than angry. "Why not?"

"You would have done so already," she said, continuing toward Kini and the colonel.

"I'll shoot the kid," Doc snapped, clearly trying to bolster his faltering bravado by uttering his words with a deeper, grittier growl.

"No, you won't do that either," Lara replied, her voice serenely melodic.

"Lara!" Rainy frightfully protested.

Doc snarled, striving to overcome his fury and intimidation. "No?"

"Same reason," she chimed, not glancing back.

"Lara!" gasped Rainy, but Lara didn't seem interested in him, either.

She roved toward Kini and the imprisoned colonel.

Kini was shaking. The blade at Spaulding's throat was beginning to serrate its way into his skin, connecting pre-existent dots of blood with fresher dots and longer, runnier, lines. Kini was transfixed in Lara's gaze, his muscles rigid. He was slicing Spaulding's throat whether he intended to or not.

"Kini," said the colonel, "let me go."

Kini was unresponsive.

"Yes, Kini," Lara agreed. "Let him go. It's you and I who need to talk, is it?"

"You are false," the native chanted, flatly.

By now, Rainy had also realized the liberty that their situation had presented him and his bold benefactor. He stepped away from Doc without thought or fear of the consequences--without even glancing back to be sure. Doc, for his part, let the child go without reaction. He, as all the others, was too busy staring at Lara and Kini and Spaulding to care about anything else.

"You cheated," Kini continued. "You did not complete the trials."

"She didn't cheat, you big dumb fuck!" Rainy hollered. "I was there. I saw her. She walked right through everything. And she walked right out the other side."

"No..." Kini moaned, incredulously. "That's not possible..."

"Yep!" Rainy snapped with an almost sadistic joy. "She's Qawalynn! The _real_ one! You have to bow down to her!"--he placed his thumbs on his cheeks and wagged his fingers at Kini childishly-- "naa-ni-naa-ni naa naa!"

"No!" Kini howled, as though physically in agony.

Blood--deep blood, dark and flowing blood--began to ooze from Spaulding's neck, and he pinched his eyes shut in horror and pain. His teeth clenched and his mind reeled at the thought of such a pointless, such a meaningless, such a humiliating and ignominious death as the one which Kini was about to deal him. The native, practically _convulsing_, was unconsciously sliding his forgotten lethal blade through the flesh of Spaulding's forgotten tender throat---

But then came the sounds of helicopter rotors from beyond the striated white ceiling. Everyone looked up, including the suddenly cognizant Kini. At the instant of his distraction, however, Spaulding unchecked his hitherto fiercely suppressed pain-reflexes and knocked Kini's knife-hand away at the wrist. Suddenly aware of the colonel again, Kini tried to pull the blade back--to slice or to stab--but Spaulding was already drawing his pistol. Before Kini or anyone else in the room could respond, Spaulding was blasting off rounds. The first shot missed, but Spaulding had squeezed the trigger flush, and his smooth-flowing pistol was popping off rounds just as quickly as they could discharge. Scowling and blazing, the colonel waved his pistol as though it were a torch and Kini were a charging bear.

However, if Spaulding's response was fast and bold, Kini's was explosive and fearless: The icy native instantly whipped into a blindingly fast left-to-right crescent kick that sent Spaulding's weapon flying--the barrel crossing Kini's own face, missing him for nothing more than the sheer fact of the semi-automatic pause between shots. After missing each side of his head by inches, the weapon went flying out of one of the street-side windows.

An instant later, however, as Spaulding dived to a side for cover, and Cavanaugh's and Doc's and Wallis' shots all ripped through the space Kini had once occupied, the inhumanly agile native had vaulted after the discarded 9mm--directly out of the window. He dived suicidally, headlong, toward the seemingly unforgiving pavement below.

In an instant, he was gone--and the other soldiers went swiftly to the window to see after his landing, to ensure it was a fatal one. They found instead that Kini had executed a half-flip in air, had landed on his feet, and was miraculously uninjured. By the time of their arrival at the window, he was already dashing from their line-of-sight, up the long city road. Without need for instruction or encouragement, the three soldiers unleashed their barrels at the fleeing native, but he vanished from range before any of them could be certain he had scored a damaging hit. They kept firing anyway, however--until Spaulding drew them back to their more pressing business.

"Fuck him!" hissed the colonel, climbing up from the ground where Kini's kick had landed him. "Let him go!"

"But sir--?" protested Wallis, though he and the others had automatically obeyed.

"Fuck him!" the colonel repeated. "Blakely's _here_!"

And the others understood instantly. They needed what they needed from Lara Croft; and they only had only a few more minutes to get it from her. While the three other soldiers converged upon the passive young woman, Spaulding vaulted across the chamber to seize a discarded MP5 laying neglected on a platform nearby. When he returned to confront her, his finger was already itching on the trigger; he was already burning to subjugate and finally humble this daughter of all of his woes and grief.

The barrel in her face, he demanded: "Where is it?"

"Where's what?" asked Lara, infuriating in her pretended innocence. Her utter serenity.

"The ILC, you fucking cunt!" snapped the colonel.

"Why do you ask?" Lara asked.

"Why do I--?" stammered the colonel. He shoved the barrel of the MP5 at her leg: "We'll see how smart you are with no fucking kneecaps, you bitch!"

"Don't you think you might have bigger problems right now, Colonel?" she asked, her crystal, lucid eyes beaming almost _cheerfully_ into his.

"Like what?" growled Wallis.

"'Like what'?" mocked Lara, sneering with sarcastic amusement. "Like...Where's Tripp?"

And it was the first moment they realized it: Tripp was gone. They glanced all around themselves, but there was no sign of him anywhere in the room.

"What," gasped the colonel, putting the barrel of the MP5 against her head, "what did you do to him, goddamn you!"

Lara could only smile at her ridiculous captors. "Don't look at me.…"

Colonel Spaulding was enraged, but he couldn't carry out his threats. He knew she couldn't have been responsible for whatever had happened to Tripp--he hadn't let her out of his sight since she had arrived, and Tripp had been on the opposite side of the room from her. But she _knew_. She _knew_ what had happened to him. He desperately wanted to shoot her, but he couldn't. Mentally, some agonizing _something_ was barring the path between his anger and his trigger-finger.

"Find him!" Spaulding barked, backing his barrel off from Lara's head.

The three remaining soldiers scattered about the seemingly open chamber, searching for something hidden--however impossibly--in the plain, open, flat, white-wall illuminated room.

Spaulding could feel a well of panic rising in him, one even greater than the one he had experienced with Kini's knife at his throat. For, more than death, Colonel Spaulding feared humiliation; and Lara Croft was getting the best of him. He could kill her--_certainly_ he could kill her--but it would do nothing to change the fact that she had humiliated him yet again. He needed to _defeat _her. To force her to concede to his will. Nothing short of her complete subjugation would appease his blinded, panicking psyche. And it seemed as though she _knew_ this. She knew all about his inner turmoil, and she was already exploiting her pre-arranged victory spoils over him, denying his ego its rights on the very level upon which it most desperately needed them served. She was starving him psychologically, fearlessly, imperviously. He wanted to shoot her, but he _couldn't_.

He just _couldn't_.

"You want to know about the ILC, Colonel?" Lara asked.

"Yes!" demanded Spaulding.

"I want to know about it, too," Lara said.

"Just tell me where you put it!" the colonel demanded.

"Tell me what I want to know," said Lara, "and I'll tell you what _you_ want to know."

She was inhumanly calm. The gun pointed at her face meant nothing to her. Her tone remained light and conversational, and Spaulding found her calm voice hypnotic and irresistible. She was in the quiet place of mind where he himself wanted to be--where he _would_ be, if he had been able to feel certain he could and _would_ achieve his goals. Burning with the urgency to get back to that place himself, he heard his own voice pleading with her:

"What do you want to know?"

"The ILC," Lara said. "What is it for? What is it actually for?"

He heard himself answering her, guilelessly:

"It keys on something called 'quantum flux inversion', and turns it into radio."

"Fascinating," Lara murmured, considering.

"Now tell me!" the colonel demanded. "Tell me!"

Before Lara could reply, Doc interrupted from across the room:

"Colonel!" Doc cried. "Found something."

"What is it?" Spaulding snapped, half-turning.

He could see that Doc was standing at the farthest southern window, examining his own fingertips as though appalled at the sight of them. Instantly, Spaulding knew what Doc had found--fresh blood on the window sill--and even as his gut tightened at the thought of what he hadn't seen happen to Tripp, he heard what Tripp must have heard, and he then saw what Tripp must have seen. But the sound came from one direction, and the ominous sight from another altogether.

Doc screamed and leaped back from the window only just in time to prevent himself from falling under the black raptor's down-sweeping hand-claws. The big black monster had been clinging precariously the outside wall, above the lip of the window-sill, waiting for another victim to come too close. Doc had been quick enough to jump clear, but Tripp obviously hadn't been. Even as Doc panicked and stumbled backwards, the menacing, hungry beast whipped into the window frame and boldly stormed the throne room.

It's arrival was on cue.

It wasn't the black raptor that Spaulding was seeing--he was only hearing it. The horror of Spaulding's vision was the striped brown raptor, arriving from the west. Upon the sound of Doc's scream, and the black's angry hiss, the brown had begun to squeeze its body through the slot in the wall where the waters of the gurgling fountain flowed and vanished. It was coming up into the west side of the throne room even while its black partner invaded from the south. And, though trapped in-between, Spaulding wasn't experiencing even the inkling of an impulse to flee. His ego overrided his fear. His ego overrided everything.

Though Doc and Cavanaugh and Wallis expended their wasted furies against the raptors, Spaulding could feel no other drive within himself save the compulsion to break the will of Lara Croft. His rage, his desperation, and his determination had become amplified by increasing orders of magnitude-- multiplied by the pressures of time: He no longer had minutes, but _seconds_ to break her will--because the raptors would soon devour him. With Blakely, it was a loss of face; and with the raptors, it was the loss of life itself; but to Spaulding, the only difference that mattered was that critical difference of _time_. He glanced once at the brown raptor, once at the black raptor, and, ignoring the gunshots and the screams, he turned his own gun barrel not upon the rampaging monsters, but rather upon the dainty young woman still standing unruffled before him.

"Tell me!" Spaulding demanded desperately, noticing how the beast was now free of the drain-slot and was even then approaching them. "Where did you put it?"

Rainy stood by, utterly speechless in horror. He tugged at Lara's vest, but found she was as immovable as the suicidally stubborn colonel.

"Where is it?"

"It's gone," snapped Lara, sadistically.

"What?" the colonel moaned, desperately, incredulously; still clinging to hope.

"I threw it into the pit, Colonel," Lara said. "There's no way to get it now. It's over."

The colonel went pale from his forehead down, and his eyes turned wide and wild. He lost a moment of strength in his legs, and he felt himself stumbling backward. He felt his mind going hazy. He couldn't believe that _this_ was how things were going to end. He couldn't grasp it. He couldn't accept it! He couldn't let it end this way!

"Colonel!" shrieked Wallis.

Wallis had seen that the brown raptor was preparing to pounce the colonel from behind. Disengaging from Doc and Cavanaugh and their tag-team assault upon the black raptor, he leaped the steps of the throne room's depressed stage to intervene and save his commander.

The colonel still couldn't hear him, though. He still couldn't see him--nor the dinosaurs, nor anyone. Lara had taken Rainy's hand and both were moving away, as though the threat of the gun aimed at them meant nothing anymore. But, in the incredible futility and anguish of the moment, something within the colonel had finally reached a breaking point and _snapped_. Though still in shock and still stumbling backward, the colonel was finally able to make his hands obey his intellect's simple, logical command: He raised his weapon, screamed in fiery rage, and fired upon Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook--to eradicate them, once and for all.

Rainy went down, clutching his leg; but it took Spaulding another instant to realize why Lara hadn't also fallen: Rainy had been hit by shrapnel, but it had been Spaulding's own face and hand that had born the brunt of his attack--the MP5 had exploded in his hand. Though on the ground in agony, and now helpless before the raptor glowering over him, Spaulding could still see nothing other than the sight of the girl and the boy fleeing through the slot in the wall through which the brown raptor had come into the throne room.

Spaulding struggled to stand; finding his knees weak, and his head swimming. He had to blink feverishly to keep the blood from running into his eyes, but with effort and determination, he was able to regain his feet. He noticed, meanwhile, how the brown raptor just behind him had clamped its mouth over Wallis' firing arm and was ripping through his abdomen with one of its rear claws while the loyal young troop screamed in agony. Needing a weapon, and seeing Wallis' uselessly flailing in the air where his arm was being anchored for his on-going disembowelment, the colonel reached for it and removed it from his limp fingers, a moment before they probably would have dropped it on their own anyway.

Without hesitation, and without even a glance back, Spaulding followed Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook beneath the wall and through the drainage slot.

To kill them.

To kill them.

Finally, _to kill them_.

* * *

Doc and Cavanaugh were alone again.

It was pandemonium: A throne room-turned-bloodbath.

The brown raptor had driven the colonel and the prisoners around the corner of the chamber--out of their sight--and only the brown raptor had come back. In the meantime, with Wallis' help, they had been winning against the black raptor; but suddenly their third soldier abandoned them to stupidly throw his life away in a futile effort to intercept the brown by himself. All three machineguns, together, might perhaps have been able to kill the black raptor; and afterward, in its turn, the brown. But now both beasts were about to attack simultaneously. Could they survive against two raptors with only two machineguns? Cavanaugh and Doc had been swiftly transported from a scene of violent but hopeful chaos into a scene of dismally slanted odds and almost certain doom.

And again, these same two men--_again_, _these same two men_--were the only ones left standing.

And, although a well-coordinated burst of team-fire had sent the black stumbling backward on its haunches, its pause served merely to coordinate its next moves with the brown's. After the brown had finished rending Wallis to bloody shreds, the two raptors, together, suddenly turned their hideous attentions their way. In a second, both raptors' sets of eyes were fixed upon the two lonely soldiers, and their dinosaurs' tight, sheer leg muscles were bouncing their dragon-parakeet bodies toward them with nothing but gay, murderous intent shining in their primordially brutal eyes.

Without the need to communicate or coordinate, the two men leaped through the side-window, clasping the rope still affixed to the ceiling slab above their heads. One by one, with only a meter between them, both men slid down the rope and let themselves fall freely through the last ten feet of their descent--hitting pavement and dashing up the road.

They never looked back.

* * *

The Ugly Things had gone, but the nourishment remained. Somewhere.

The Ugly Thing that Stripes had mostly consumed hadn't really been as tasty he had hoped it would be. It had been better than nothing, certainly--something to fill his rumbling, empty insides--but it wasn't like eating pouncers, or flutteries, or even slipperies. The taste had been wrong. Too bland. The meat had been unsavory. Too soft. Eating that Ugly Thing hadn't done much to appease his hunger at all. Granted, there was a now bulk within his belly that hadn't been there before; but the bulk didn't feel pleasing. It felt empty and unfulfilling, as though all he had swallowed was a belly-full of water.

But, even though the Ugly Things had fled, Stripes could sense that there was still nourishment somewhere nearby. It didn't make any sense at all until Stripes finally turned around and noticed the motion in the crawl-cave opening through which he had entered the nest. There was another Ugly Thing there, struggling through the passage, trying to exit--trying to lead Stripes on another hunting adventure! Certainly, _certainly,_ that creature must be the one with the tasty juice and yummy meat with all the nourishment inside of it that Stripes so badly desired.

Surely, surely, surely.

* * *

Atop the high, flat stuppa roof, the gyros were swarming and settling into their landings like wasps upon a muddy shore. There were a dozen of them; some carrying a pilot and a passenger, and some carrying a pilot and a passengerseat-load of equipment. They landed in formation, their whirring rotors still spinning while their passengers disembarked. They were closely parked, expertly arranged in their military rows and military columns; and, when the fresh soldiers--with their fresh uniforms, and their fresh faces--all piled off of their rides, they flowed like ants following trained paths through treacherous terrain: Falling into single-file columns even while ducking the low-hanging rotors. It was as through they were simply carrying out one of their many basic drills. They had no more sense of the reality of their situation than they would were they back at home and practicing their landing in their barracks' backlot. The new guys were carrying X122 weapons and were falling into command groups for report and assembly in just the same way Cavanaugh and Doc had recalled doing when they had arrived at the shore of the crater-lake above; but these men's arrival was very different from Doc and Cavanaugh's: These men had arrived at a level too low in this place's progressively nightmarish rings of Hell to safely remain as blindly enthusiastic and naïve as they still were. They were heading towards a rude awakening--a _very_ rude awakening.

Climbing the ramp to the stuppa-top made Doc and Cavanaugh feel like giants approaching the Lilliputian army. They were veterans: Hardened. Experienced. _Aware_. These new-comers were merely children: Helpless and blind. They had no notion whatever that they had been brought here as lambs to the slaughter. They were executing their proper security procedures, but they had no true caution in their eyes. If a raptor, or a Mongol Hoard of biting lizards, or a tyrannosaurus rex, or a giant spider--or a Lara Croft--were to come upon them now, they would be utterly unprepared to face the challenge. These new troops were going to die; and their stupidity would kill even the smartest of any veterans they dragged down with them. Still, there was strength in numbers; and the new soldiers' group of twenty-odd troops represented a force as great as Doc and Cavanaugh's fondest recent fantasies. They didn't walk, but rather _ran_ up the stuppa ramp to greet the newcomers as they arrived.

Captain Blakely, directing the fresh-faced squads, responded to them with indifference.

Without a greeting, an acknowledgment, or even a change of facial expression, Blakely asked them:

"Where's the colonel?"

Doc had been considering warning him about the raptors chasing after them, and of Kini's likely stalking them. He had even been considering changing his mind about his loyalties and siding with Blakely and Corbin in their stunning little coup (after all, they _had _won). But, upon hearing that note of disregard for Colonel Spaulding--of unmitigated _contempt_ for Colonel Spaulding--Doc knew he would never join him nor any of his piss-ant cronies, even if they ended up being the last military leaders on Earth.

"He's dead," Doc snapped, angrily.

"Too bad," Blakely said, returning much of his attention back to his squads, "I was hoping I'd get to see his face."

Doc was enraged.

"You fucker," Doc said.

But Cavanaugh's emotions were running more moderately. He saw the men before him not as enemies--as Doc was apparently beginning to--but rather as his ticket. Not as allies, but as _tools_. If he could play them right. He gave Blakely a brighter and more hopeful-looking face than it seemed Doc could muster, and he gestured subtly to Doc that he should do the same. Cavanaugh knew Doc couldn't put on such a false-face--not now, not after all he'd been through--but the gesture at least calmed him before he completely burned the bridge of opportunity that Cavanaugh saw lying potentially before them.

Blakely could see Cavanaugh's responsiveness, and he addressed him:

"With the colonel out of the way," Blakely said, "there's no reason why you two can't join us."

"I'd rather--" Doc hissed, but Cavanaugh gripped his elbow to calm him.

"What he means," said Cavanaugh, "is that it doesn't look like we have much of a choice. Do we?"

"You're a perceptive man, _Captain _Cavanaugh," Blakely said, impressing no one save himself with his verbal promotion.

Cavanaugh wasn't in the leastwise tempted. But he wouldn't let Blakely see that.

"It's yours if you want it," continued Blakely. "If you do, you can start with the girl. Where is she?"

Doc blurted it out:

"She's dead, too."

"The ILC?" asked Blakely, clearly beginning to lose his enthusiasm.

"Destroyed--" Doc tried to say, but Cavanaugh intercepted this near-fatal over-revelation just in time.

"We don't know," Cavanaugh said. "It _might_ be destroyed."

Blakely was doubtful.

"We're still getting telemetry from it," he said.

And neither of the two men could explain the conundrum. They too had been receiving telemetry from it, despite two separate reports of its apparent destruction. Neither man had the technical training to address the question, and neither would have voluntarily helped Blakely any more than he absolutely had to in any case. The two did the only thing they could: They stared blankly.

"In any case," Blakely said, "you're welcome to join my team."

"Or..?" asked Doc--just too quickly for Cavanaugh to check his dangerously contentious attitude.

"Or…" replied Blakely; but he didn't finish the thought in words.

He allowed his own blank expression and a dismissive shrug of his shoulders to represent his answer. He might have been offering a bribe, or he might he been making a threat. Perhaps even Blakely himself didn't know. In any case, it had it's intended effect: It made Doc and Cavanaugh very nervous.

"You decide," Blakely said.

Blakely had begun to walk away, and Doc and Cavanaugh had begun to consider their moment's options.

"Talk to Lieutenant Vlarnoff when you make up your minds," Blakely called back.

It wasn't long after that before they had volunteered to join a squad.

* * *

Struggling beneath the wall had been harder than Spaulding had expected it would be.

Though the duct was of crawlable height and width, it was completely immersed in the white, bubbling, tickling waters flowing from the fountain, and it was far longer than Spaulding had imagined it would be. But, somehow, Lara and Rainy had both squeezed into this shaft, and, from what he could see through the blazing white effervescence before him, they were not still trapped in the passage, nor were they dead. Besides, the raptor had come through here from the outside. It had to lead _somewhere_. Thoughts of that 'somewhere', and thoughts of Lara Croft escaping to it before he could give her the bullet holes he owed her, fueled Spaulding's pursuit, even when the water seemed unending and the tunnel seemed impassable. He inhaled water; and bubbling, sizzling vapor; but even when his head swam, he kept struggling; and, eventually, he forced his way through the narrow passage and out the other side.

When he came through, however, he found he hadn't emerged in the _somewhere _where Lara had gone, but had rather found himself immerging from the duct into a ten-by-five-foot drainage junction. Suddenly, he was standing in four feet of wildly active water, considering his options.

The junction held portals leading to either side and one leading directly downward. The portals from the sides fed the junction, the one leading down bled water rapidly away. Spaulding hadn't been inclined to jump into a human-sized garbage disposal such the one leading down--perhaps because some inkling of his lost clarity was already returning to him--but when he heard the unmistakable murmur of human voices down there, he couldn't stop himself from leaping into the vortex and following the water through its course.

* * *

Lieutenant Vlarnoff had assigned them to First Squad.

It was a bitter-sweet slice of ironic nostalgia, if only a brief one. First Squad, as they had known it, was gone: Doc and Cavanaugh were the only two surviving members. That Corbin should restructure his new Operations Force in such a way that the name of such a recently, tragically, defuncted Squad as First's was resurrected--just so his own personally selected platoons could have normal numerical names--was a testament to the man's soullessness. Neither Doc nor Cavanaugh intended to remain long in this blasphemy of a squad, and neither would have to.

Their first mission had been to secure the streets of the city--a task that Doc and Cavanaugh had undertaken on their own only a few hours before. It was a routine patrolling mission, but with the fewness of the troops' numbers, the enormous size of the city, and the fretful dangers they had been briefed to expect, the process was a slow-going one. Soon the various squads were scattered throughout the city, securing area after area at a snail's pace.

Cavanaugh had recommended to his new squad leader, Lieutenant Leibecker, that they would do better to split the squad into two-man teams to cover more ground more quickly--keeping in constant radio contact, of course. Naturally, the squad leader agreed; deferring to Cavanaugh's and Doc's prior experience, their expertise with the layout of the city, and their assurance that two men with MP5s could easily handle any creatures they might encounter along the way. Once on their own, Doc and Cavanaugh, as the other two-man teams, had begun to report the locations they had visited. All of the reports jibed with what their neighboring patrol teams could see around them, so no one realized that what Doc and Cavanaugh were 'reporting' were merely the recollections of a patrol they had actually conducted many hours earlier.

In reality, they were nowhere near their search sector.

They were heading back toward the center of the city.

Back to the stuppa.

* * *

After passing down through the junction, the aqueduct had emptied into a ramp that was high and broad and easy to walk through. Lara and Rainy had had no trouble finding their way to the far end; even if Rainy had been reduced to a hobble. His leg wound was not life-threatening, however. With medical help, he would be fine. But, at the lip of the aqueduct system, at its furthest edge, the two had found themselves at a dead end.

They stood before the vast, white, rising column of steam-like vapor that they knew had been the 'smoke-stack' climbing into the sky when they had first seen the pyramid from the river. For Rainy, this place must have seemed to be the end of the line. There was nowhere further to retreat. But, for Lara, this place was alluring and mysterious. This was the same column of white where she had thrown the ILC; where the great tyrannosaurus rex had followed it to its own cataclysmic doom. It was where she was being led--where she had _always _been being led--throughout her entire life. Below, she knew, was more than the simple 'pit' she had vaguely intimated it to be to her captors; it was a place of some vast and terrific mystery. She burned then as she had burned after the Qawalynn trials, before surrendering herself to Doc. Had she continued around that last corner, she knew, it would have led her here. A few hundred feet lower, perhaps; but _here_. She burned to go into this place and learn its mysteries first-hand.

But it was a very, very, long way down.

"It's bottomless," said Rainy.

"Nothing's bottomless," said Lara, quietly.

"Think maybe we can climb these?" Rainy wondered, looking up.

He was referring to the lip-edge of the next higher spill-ramp, whose contents merged into their own spill-ramp's waters on their mutual way down. All the way up and down the main shaft, the drainage system projected such lips from the walls. The lips were just large enough and just close enough to potentially allow a strong and agile person to climb his or her way up their series. Or down their series.

"We must find a way down to it," Lara said, taking Rainy by surprise.

"Down?" gasped Rainy. "Why?"

"That place down there is where we were going before," Lara said. "It's where we've been going all along. If only I had been quiet enough to listen to it."

"Lara," Rainy said, "They brought helicopters in here, somehow. I'll bet you can fly one and get us out of here. But they landed up there, on the roof."

"We're not climbing up there, Rainy," Lara said.

"Then maybe we could go back to the main room again," suggested Rainy. "I'll bet the fighting's over by now."

He didn't have to say who he suspected had won.

"No," said Lara, "our way is down. It's always been down. Never more than now."

"You've been getting really spooky lately," Rainy said. "Saving that psycho, Doc? Trying to make Spaulding shoot you? And now this? You really want to go _down_? Are you really that crazy?"

"I'm not crazy, Rainy," Lara said. "I'm Qawalynn."

Rainy was speechless.

"I belong down there," Lara continued. "It's all down there. All the answers. Everything. I have to go."

After that, Lara was quiet; but her intent remained implicit.

Rainy, however, was incensed.

With the water flow in the main shaft increasing with depth--as more and more aqueducts contributed to the collective spill--it was easy to see how the shaft became a nightmarish torrent before descending too far. If climbing upward were dangerous, climbing downward was sheer insanity.

"You'll be washed away before you ever reach the bottom! That's suicide!" Rainy cried. "Lara, snap out of this! Lara!"

But Lara, in her near-trance, and Rainy, in his pleading appeals to her, were both taken by surprise. The water flowing behind them splashed with new feet and old troubles. They turned and saw Spaulding walking in the spill-ramp, his weapon already pointed at them.

"You," hissed Spaulding.

His face was mangled, scarred, and water-logged; his clothes were soaked, and his hair was disheveled, miserably. His eyes were wide and maniacal. He approached them slowly. Clearly, there was nowhere left for them to go. "You destroyed everything."

"Not everything," said Lara. "But the night is young, yet."

He took aim, his gun clenched in his able left hand, supported on the back of his mangled right.

"The game is over, bitch!"

"The 'game'?" scoffed Lara. "What do you know of games? You never even knew how to play."

"Lara?" moaned Rainy, wondering how he was supposed to be reacting to this. If he were to follow her example, everything was still under control!

"Don't worry, Rainy," she told him, taking his hand tightly in her own. "We won't have to climb down."

Spaulding shrieked a fervid howl and fired his weapon--but by then Lara had thrown herself and Rainy backward from the edge of the aqueduct lip, and they had fallen safely out of his gunsites. By the time he had rushed to the edge to try to shoot after them, they had already vanished into the anonymous, thick, white, rising mist--and were gone.


	27. Chapter Twenty Six: Project: TOMB RAIDER

"_Welcome to this fortress tall_

_Take some time to show you around_

_Impossible to break these walls_

_For you see this steel is much too strong_

_Computer banks to rule the world_

_And instruments to sight the stars…_

"_Foreign life forms inventoried_

_Suspended state of cryogenics_

_Selective amnesia's the story_

_Believed foretold, but who'd suspect?_

_The military intelligence_

_Two words combined that can't make sense_

"_Possibly I've seen too much_

_Hanger 18, I know too much._"

**--Megadeth.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:** **"**Project: TOMB RAIDER.**"**

"Ha-ha!"

He got her!

Spaulding's great triumph flooded over him with a wave of exhilaration and release. He had blown the bitch and the kid right off the edge of the ramp and over into oblivion itself! He'd won! Finally! Finally, Spaulding had found a victory to claim for himself in this brutal, ugly business. Finally, he'd claimed some small consolation for all that he'd lost. At last, the burning--churning--of his insides had begun to subside. It wasn't the victory he had been planning twenty minutes earlier, but things had changed. At this point, he was willing to congratulate himself for whatever victory he could get.

Everything really had changed.

Now that Lara Croft and Rainy Hedgebrook had been dispatched, Spaulding was able to let the changes wash over him. First of all, the impending reality of the mission of Captain Blakely and his distant leash-holder, Jacob Corbin, had finally begun to germinate in his mind. When there had still seemed a chance to recover the ILC and assert himself into the Project hierarchy through conventional avenues, his mind had been blinded by its reeling for self-preservation; but now that that option had dissolved, the game had become bigger.

With Croft's granddaughter out of the picture, and the ILC with her--and Rainy Hedgebrook and the entire Singularity Internetwork along with them--there would no longer be any reason for the Project to maintain its strict secrecy. With the Internetwork Phase closed by default, there could be no further theoretical discovery. All that would remain is practical application. With no more reason to stay a Black Project, they would go public--in the worst possible way.

Perhaps this was Corbin's intention all along: To take the opportunity offered by Rainy Hedgebrook's destructive virus and Lara Croft's wildcard interference to take his plans to their next logical level--while everyone with any hope of opposing him was busy looking other ways. Maybe this was what Jeremy Leipig had realized when he had been caught with his hands in the Pentagon's cookie jar. In any case, even if Spaulding could no longer save the Black Project, he had the implicit responsibility to stop Corbin from turning all of their work into Hell on Earth. Now that he was the only one left who still could.

And it all would start with a phone call.

* * *

What is fear of death?

It is nothing more than the barrier that stands between the human and her true potential. In all of the best and most pleasurably recalled memories in Lara's life, there had always been an implied chance of death--brutal, sudden, and violent. She had stared those myriad deaths in their cold, merciless eyes. Dared them. Challenged them. Opposed them.

But never before had she _embraced_ them. Never before now.

She had never imagined there could be such tranquility in the inevitability of destruction; in the anticipation of annihilation. Perhaps this was what the Buddhists meant when the spoke of the heaven of Nirvana--of total annihilation of the self. Lara could have quoted their scriptures verbatim, and yet had never really comprehended them before this moment, as she fell, fell, fell, into the unknown.

There had been other unknowns that she had dared to probe that day--there had been the mountain slopes she had braved in her crashing plane and upon her make-shift snowboard; there had been the vast cauldron waterfall before the caverns' underground waterways; there had been the downhill rock slope she had run (in a foot-race against Kini, exchanging gunfire as though flash-photography); there had been the rapids; the pyramid vortex; the dungeon drain; the Qawalynn trials--and yet, there had never been an instant in all of those times when she had had no reason to at least _hope_ for survival, even if survival could only be by means of extreme skill or pure luck. But, to fall here, into this place..._this calling, calling place_…. Everything that had fallen here had been destroyed. She vividly remembered the sight of the rising streak of aerated blood that rose into the mists above the world after the great dragon had followed her Idol down into this place: the Beast and the power of God consumed together in this maw and mutually annihilated. Horror, death, destruction, and also _holiness_ existed somehow simultaneously and spontaneously in this place below.

And Lara was going to it now--to join it, or be joined within it.

To die; or to live for the very first time.

She clutched Rainy's warm, writhing flesh to hers; listening to the whimpering sounds of his mindless terror and thinking of what her own might have sounded like in a distant memory. She pressed his head to her breast, and she vaguely wished he could appreciate the true significance of the moment. She wished he could be like her; with another image besides terror to take with him into Heaven--since that was where they were going:

To Heaven.

To meet God.

* * *

Even before Cavanaugh and Doc reached the stuppa, they knew that they were going to have problems.

First, they knew that actually flying the X920s was most likely going to be an impossibility. As with most Project technologies, the greatest fear the Pentagon had was that an unauthorized somebody would make off with a specimen. So, in order to prevent their being operated without authorization, their control system' basic functions had been hardwired to route through satellite uplink communications channels. A commander with the correct codes could enable or disable any one of them from wherever the he happened to have access to the satellite. Furthermore, standard procedure called for the automatic disarming of an X920s weapons and power systems whenever they weren't being operated. The satellite's encryption protocols therefore made it impossible to 'hotwire' an X920.

So they weren't planning to steal rides. They were planning to steal equipment: Climbing gear, scuba gear, survival gear--everything they might need to escape the cavern using the raft they both prayed was still fastened at the dock on the pyramid's water level.

Which related to their second problem: The equipment and everything else on the stuppa-top was under guard. They would have to neutralize the sentry. This was serious problem, though not because it would be difficult. They were fully trained and highly experienced with sentry elimination. But this was a man they knew. This was a friend--even if a misled and misaligned friend. They had to be sure to silence him before he could transmit even a word to the others, but they couldn't just _shoot_ him. They couldn't just _kill_ a friend.

And yet, even this wasn't their most immediate problem.

Another two-man patrol had just reached the area from which they were supposedly transmitting their reports. Syrois and Evans were about to enter the building where Doc and Cavanaugh actually weren't:

"_Team-three, Team-two_," said Evan's easy-going voice.

"Go ahead, -two," replied Doc, sweating, glancing at Cavanaugh--who was also shaking his head, having also run out of ideas. Their ghost team was cornered.

"_I'm about to enter the building, Doc_," continued Evans, "_don't you shoot me, now_..."

"Don't have to worry about that, guy," said Doc. He shrugged at Cavanaugh: _What next?_

"_Hey, Doc, Cav, hey_--" hailed the well-fooled, very far-away soldier as he halted and inquired with gratifying credulity: "_Where'd you guys go?_"

"We're right here, don't you see us?" said Cavanaugh. He then deactivating his headset.

Both men then offline, they sighed at one-another and unthinkingly glanced over the final edge of the wall standing between them and the plain line-of-sight to the sentry on the stuppa-top. McCray, the sentry, was sitting perfectly unsuspectingly upon the pilot-saddle of an X920, looking bored and persecuted. He was clearly angry about having been left behind while the others actually carried out missions.

Back under cover, Cavanaugh said:

"Look, Doc, you know what we've got to do."

Doc nodded.

"You up for it?" Cavanaugh asked.

"This one's on me," Doc said. "He owes me twenty bucks. After this, we'll call it even."

"Good attitude," Cavanaugh replied.

Doc then launched his heavy body across the area between their hiding place and poor, poor unsuspecting McCray. By the time he looked their way, the flat side of Doc's MP5 was already rushing toward his face. McCray went down on the other side of the X920--alive, but without having transmitted so much as a gasp.

* * *

"_No, sir_," said Mister Morigushi, "_Not a peep_."

"Not a _response_, Chief?" asked Spaulding, attempting to clarify the meaning of the pilot's report.

"_Not a signal_," the pilot said. "_Your codes aren't even giving us access to the satellite anymore, let alone to anybody on the other side_."

"How the hell did Corbin manage this?" Spaulding exclaimed, adding angrily: "So quickly!"

"_He's locked you out of the system, sir_," said Morigushi. "_There's nothing more I can do_."

"Yes, there is, son," Spaulding said, knowing that Morigushi would have no idea what he might mean--at least, not before he asked him more explicitly. "Blakely's Chinook's running on Blakely's codes."

"_Sir?_"

"You and your crewchief," Spaulding said, "you are armed, aren't you?"

"_Sir?_"

By his tone, though, it was clear that Morigushi knew exactly what Spaulding was asking.

"Son," said Spaulding, "you and your crewchief are all that stands between Corbin and the rest of the fucking world. I need you to do this for me. Not just for me, but for all the lives you're going to save. Do you understand?"

A long pause. A melancholy voice:

"_Yes, sir_."

"We may wind up out of contact after this," Spaulding said. "Corbin couldn't do it from Washington, but Blakely might be smart enough to cut us out of _this_ channel, too. Even if he does, I need you to get me out of here. There are X920s on the roof over me. I'm going to climb to them and take one. I need you to make sure it's going to start up. Make it number seventeen. That's just a random number, but I want you to remember it. Say it back to me, Chief: 'Number Seventeen.'"

"_Number Seventeen_," replied the apprehensive pilot.

"That's my lucky number," said the colonel. "Can you do this? Can you do it?"

"_I can do it, Colonel_," said Morigushi.

"We're saving the world, son," Spaulding said. "I'll see you soon."

The colonel managed to climb from the lip of his own drain to the lip of the one above him, but that was as far as he got.

* * *

_It was like a dream._

_They didn't die._

They warmed; they slowed.

_They didn't die._

They floated. They alighted upon a magic carpet of living air.

_It was like a dream._

The water all around them, the pounding noise, the wet, the cold--

It all stopped.

_And they didn't die._

The water was there, but far away, somehow.

_It was like a dream._

Their backs came to rest upon a cool, cool, metal surface.

Metal--but like no metal she had ever felt.

_Like a dream._

All around, the air was different. Warmer. Perfectly dry. Their clothes were dry. All around, the view between them and the walls of the cascading shaft down which they had been falling was unobstructed, save for an inexplicable yellow-orange haze. They could see the water violently pounding at the walls of the shaft--but it stopped at the air above their heads. There, the water pounded an invisible dome, and it exploded into a gentle mist that rose back up into the sky from which it had fallen. No water passed through. Even their clothes had been dried.

_It was like a dream._

A dream that Lara had already dreamed once; in a forgotten, sad childhood, a long time before.

But they rested on the metal; and they weren't dead; and it wasn't a dream.

And Rainy--this time, _Rainy_--was the only one who understood:

"Welcome to Singularity-Two," Rainy said, sitting upright next to the still awe-struck, still supine, Lara Croft. "Or, I suppose we should call it 'Qawalapeque'--since that's what the Indians obviously called it."

He ran his palms across the smooth metal surface before him, glancing credulously about the mechanical terrain around them--the surface's vents, its panels, its raised conic sections, its alien markings. The sigh he then uttered made it clear that whatever secrets he might have been holding back from Lara Croft were now betrayed and out in the open--to be explored and explained: Starting with the alien spaceship upon which the two now comfortably rested.

_The alien spaceship_.

"It's just like the Tomb Raider," Rainy said. "It's just like home."

* * *

"Move it, Doc!"

They were running out of time!

Already, their bastard siblings in the new and disapproved First Squad had figured out what had happened. They hadn't yet figured out where he and Doc had gone, but that wouldn't be long coming. There weren't many places two fugitives such as themselves could go. Cavanaugh only hoped that no one had secured the dock level--or there might be another sentry they would have to deal with. That would be a problem to overcome as they came upon it; but, if they could get through the dock and onto the water before the others apprehended them, they would be practically home-free: The walls around city were too high for Blakely's troops to spot their raft once they were on the water and away. But first they would have to escape from the extremely vulnerable rooftop. And Doc was taking too long.

"Come on!" Cavanaugh whisper-shouted. "What are you doing?"

They had already claimed a pair of scuba tanks, vests, and masks; they had found an underwater propeller for traveling upstream against the flow of the underground river; they had found a set of grappler-ascenders for climbing the sides of the huge bowl of the waterfall; and they had even found a fresh bandoleer of hand grenades--just in case. All they needed was a pair of flashlights--and there should have been a flashlight in each and every cargo compartment of each and every gyro-copter. Yet, Doc wasn't finding them--or he wasn't returning with them--one or the other.

"What are you doing?" Cavanaugh demanded, becoming anxious. He didn't like standing in the open like this--with his arms full of goods like a common house burglar.

"Cavanaugh!" said Doc unexpectedly. "Get over here!"

Cavanaugh maneuvered through the tight labyrinth of parked pilot seats and sagging rotor blades, struggling not to drop any of his precious armload, trying not to yell at his infuriating battle-buddy.

"What is it?"

"This one's online."

Cavanaugh nearly dropped his gear.

"What?" he gasped; but, standing alongside Doc, he could see for himself: In the console within the cockpit, there was a light beside the registration number, UNIT 17, that was glowing a warm, inviting green.

"We're in!" Cavanaugh said, packing his equipment into Unit 17's cargo compartment.

But Doc was hesitant--possibly the reason for his previous delay.

"What if it's a trap?" Doc said. "Maybe they know what we're doing."

Cavanaugh shook his head. The chances of their finding the one that functioned among the thirteen units was too remote for the enemy to have planned it. It had to have been a mistake--_their_ mistake.

"The others are still offline," he said. "We just got lucky."

"What if they cut it off in air?" said Doc.

"Would you rather row your way out of here?"

Doc was still reluctant, but after Cavanaugh reached into Unit 12's cargo compartment and removed a self-inflating emergency raft--just like the one that was floating at the dock below--Doc conceded.

"Yeah, fuck it."

In a few minutes, the two were airborne.

* * *

Spaulding almost thought he could see the bottom for a moment. The spilling water and the thick, rising mist had seemed to shift for a single spontaneous instant, and it had seemed as though an area had cleared for him to see through. It revealed a troubled region of aqueous violence where the water wasn't spilling through, but was instead somehow being suspended and churned in place, as though consumed within a vortex.

The image only lasted for a split-second. It could easily have been a trick of the queer pseudo-sunlight refracting through it all; but the impression that he was above something troubled and unnatural remained with him. He would be glad to be clear of the cavern, and the water, and the pyramid--once and for all--but he wouldn't be given that option.

While he had been looking down, standing upon the lip of the drainage duct just above the one from which he had started his climb, something had arrived on the lip above his. A shadow had passed between him and the chamber's queer sunlight. He didn't have to wonder what it was; he could hear its breath--its growls. It was just above him, leaning down from the lip upon which it perched itself, lowering its snout, almost curiously, over his head.

"Alright," Spaulding heard himself scowling, looking up into its toothy face. "What do _you_ want?"

It was the black raptor. When it tried to bite his forehead, Spaulding used the sides of the duct opening behind him to pull himself backward into his aqueduct--leaving the creature leaning heavily outward and down, over-extending itself, and peering after him as though hoping its eyes would give it the gravity to pull itself in after him.

Amazingly, it seemed as if they _could_.

The wiry, rubbery-agile creature literally slithered into the duct after the colonel; sliding not off nor out nor even down from its higher level, but rather sliding somehow along its perch and beneath it--its arms outstretched, its mouth open, its tail providing a pivot to allow its pendulum-like body to swing right in after him. It came fast, using the walls of the duct the way Spaulding had, grasping them to propel itself along. It was almost human-like how it stood silhouetted in the doorway of the duct exit, its back to the bright white mist rising behind it.

But Spaulding was ready for it. Him, and his MP5 submachinegun.

His screaming rounds chopped off the creature's grips to the walls before it could fully achieve them; and, suddenly frictionless, its jagged-nailed hands slid clumsily down the smooth stone sides, collapsing the beast in a heap at the edge of the ramp. Undaunted however, the beast gathered its legs and its feet and its now-recoiled tail beneath itself. It opened its mouth for another blood-curdling snarl, and it prepared to spring in after him.

But Spaulding didn't give it the chance.

Knowing his bullets would be useless--and knowing this would be the last thing the creature would expect--Spaulding threw himself at the beast, sliding like a Baseball player for home. He slid into the creature's side on the near-frictionless surface and he kicked it in the ribs--launching himself safely backward while sending it soaring out into the white-misty, open-shaft death awaiting it outside.

He listened to the thing falling, and he waited.

He heard it hitting that strange, inexplicable vortex he hadn't believed he had really seen those moments before. The invincible black dragon then let out a wail, and then an agonized, extenuated, convulsing shriek: A shriek that sounded more like a thing being electrocuted than anything else Spaulding could imagine. It lasted for long time, the shrieking, the drowning, the torture. When it finally--abruptly--ended, Spaulding was left with the lasting impression that the raptor had just been destroyed by something even more vicious than the raptor itself. That something had less killed it than had _shredded_ its flesh, utterly.

When the regular sounds of water flow resumed, some remnants of that terror lingered almost audibly in the subtleties of the falling, spattering cascade. It took a long time for him to recover the courage to go out and risk himself climbing the ducts once again. For a time, Spaulding simply sat; partly for caution, and partly for the consummate awe from which he had to allow himself time to recover. He sat in place and waited; listening to the water running around him and the echoing sounds of his own breath in the aqueduct passage.

The terror was enough to make him reconsider his options. He might possibly have been able to return through the duct system, against the stream, and return to the main chamber of the building. From there, he might have been able to climb to the stuppa-top without having to place himself above whatever it was that awaited him at the bottom of the shaft. Yet, as he eventually forced himself to acknowledge, there were almost certainly sentries in that chamber now, guarding the Interlocutor device that now belonged to them instead of to him. As though Destiny itself called, he felt a certainty that the best and only thing he could do was finish climbing the shaft to their landing ground and fulfill his plan to commandeer his X920 and be off.

He would _have_ to overcome his fear.

It took a few moments, but once he was sure his battered hands would be steady enough, and his heaving chest would be obedient enough, he returned to the lip of the duct and he continued his climb. But when he had cleared his shoulders and chest above the lip of the higher duct, he noticed a brown snout and a pair of piercing brown eyes, patiently waiting for him there. Can a raptor smile? It had been so perfectly still, so perfectly quiet--so perfectly patient--that Spaulding had no idea it was there until he had pulled his feet too far from the lip of the duct below to drop back down.

Before he had even realized it had moved, it had taken his head in its mouth. Squealing in shock and pain, Spaulding's hands went to his cheeks, his jaws, his temples--where the thing's teeth were penetrating his skin, biting through the meat, burrowing into bone!

Spaulding's weight, left unsupported when his hands had abandoned their posts to fight against the raptor's jaws, nearly pulled the beast off of its higher duct. But its fast, strong, prehistoric hand-claws gripped hard to the lip of the ramp beneath it, holding it fast; allowing it to suspend its victim helplessly, dangling him by the neck. Spaulding could not fall away--it was heaving him up by his head and face! Thinking that moment only about the pain of the teeth slowly crushing his skull--and of the foul dinosaur breath rushing in and out over his bleeding nose, Spaulding kicked out with his legs--entirely forgetting to take hold of anything even remotely supported by the walls and ducts around him.

He kicked the raptor loose from the duct--along with himself.

They both fell into the maw--cursing the other's existence in every verbal way their respective species could.

* * *

"'Tomb Raider?'" Lara asked.

"Project: Tomb Raider, to be more exact," Rainy said.

"But this is a..?" Lara tried to say, hesitating to suggest the seemingly obvious and yet obviously absurd.

"It's a spaceship, Lara," Rainy stated, relieving her of her burden of incredulity. "It's a UFO, just like in the Project: Bluebook reports. You know, the ones my government claims don't exist, but that they have locked away in a basement in California where no one ever sees it."

"Like in a tomb, I presume," she said.

"That's not really the reason," Rainy replied. "They say that when they found the UFO, when they finally opened it, there was a dead body inside. I wasn't even born back then; but they tell me that after that happened, the guys started feeling like grave-robbers. They started calling each other 'tomb raiders' and the name just sort of stuck. It's been 'Project: Tomb Raider' ever since."

"So everything you told me before was just a lie," she asserted.

"You mean that stuff about radio?" Rainy said. "No, it's all pretty much true, except it's two spaceships, not two radio singularities. The geniuses in Washington made us memorize that cover story just in case we ever had to explain any of our equipment to somebody. Especially if we had to explain the Landez shit."

"Landez crystal isn't for radio, then?" she asked, still awed by the sight of the roof of the alien spaceship.

"Nah," Rainy said. "Not like you'd normally think of it. It's sensitive to EM, sure enough, but it picks up EM activity on a level that no radio ever could. They call it--"

"'Quantum flux inversion'," said Lara, quoting Spaulding's near-delirious revelation.

"Right."

Rainy could obviously recall where she had heard it, but it seemed he preferred not to dwell upon the episode for any longer than he had to. His hand--seemingly unconsciously--had gone to his leg to cradle its still-bleeding wound.

"The Tomb Raiders' job was to translate the QFI data into something our Earth computers could read," Rainy said. "The trick to it was this second spaceship. After we started them talking to each other, with us controlling the whole thing, we started getting real data--not just noise, Lara, but detailed data: information, documents, sensor readouts--lots of shit. I never knew the half of it. Apparently."

Lara could tell from the final word of his comment that Rainy had been surprised to learn the full extent of the project with which he was involved--surprised enough to feel guilty about it. But Lara didn't want to delve into it just then. She had other questions.

"And this force field?" she asked, her eyes tentatively searching the odd invisible layer of yellow-orange nothing protecting them from the massive down-pour. "Can your project explain how _it_ works?"

"Not precisely," Rainy said. "It's a resonance field, generated by quantum flux inversion. But it's not just protection. There's data encoded in its energy patterns. It's the Tomb Raider's resonance patterns that we've been transmitting here, and vice-versa, through the Interlocutor."

"It's incredible," Lara said. "It lets through people, just not other things."

"But that's not normal," Rainy said, confusing Lara.

"What?" Lara said, "but we just--"

"I know, but back in Cali, the Tomb Raider's field is impenetrable," Rainy said. "They've lowered it before, like I said, but nothing's ever gone through it while it's been up."

"But we just passed right through!"

"I know."

"How'd we do that?"

"I have no idea," said Rainy. "The field's supposed to be _impenetrable_. They tried everything short of a nuclear blast to get through it in the '60's, and they say they doubt even that would've worked."

"But that would--"

But Rainy turned suddenly, violently, emphatic: "_Lara, look out!_"

A shadow was rapidly descending over her, blocking the light of the sky far, far above. Rainy could see it from his vantage, off to the side, but Lara couldn't--she was directly beneath it, and it would land on her head if she remained in place for even another second.

He reached for her to pull her to a side, but she was already moving--dashing behind him to pull him back by his shoulders if need be. She was too late to have saved him, but her efforts were unneeded regardless: The shape struck the top of the invisible dome of the force field, and it went instantly into frenzied deformation--exploding into convulsions of such incomprehensible fury that it became utterly impossible to bring the thing into visual focus. It vibrated until its edges blurred; until its colors fogged; until its very substance began to shred and disintegrate.

But its screams were always crystal clear.

It was a raptor; but its shape very quickly became an unrecognizable convolution of twisted limbs and rended pieces, bouncing and sliding swiftly from the apex of the dome to a side--sinking into the corner between the wall and the barrier of the field. It became wedged there, and over the course of another agonizingly long second, it came utterly apart--exploding orgasmically into dots and streams of flesh, bones, and atomized blood.

It had, horribly, remained alive for virtually the entire ordeal--screaming hysterically until the very end.

"Jesus Christ," whispered Rainy, horrified.

While the pounding water washed away what was left of the raptor's innards--which had been sizzling tenaciously upon the edge of the ship's resonance field--the two remained quiet in ghastly reverence. There was little either could say. Neither had ever seen such a horror before. It made Lara comprehend why the tyrannosaurus rex had made the tortured noise it had made when it had gone down into this hole--and why its death throes had been a full-bodied, register-eight-Richter-scale earthquake: With even this comparatively tiny raptor as the source of resistance, the resonance field had put the ground, the walls--the very air--into an unsettling vibration. The tremor had been subtle, but profoundly pervasive; shaking even the air in her lungs. The potential destructive power of the field around them was unimaginable. Their flesh would be little more than tissue paper against its fury--_should have been_ little more than tissue paper--and yet they had survived. Their reverence for this place was genuine: They were grateful to be alive; and even Lara wondered how and why.

"Maybe, it's just," Lara mumbled a minute later, compulsively speculating, even in her horror, "_people_... Maybe it's only people that can--"

But then came another blow to the field, and to her theory: A second raptor--and a first _human_--fell from the sky, struck the shield, and became caught at the rim of the saucer-shaped alien ship's invisible, invincible, unmerciful dome. She could hear Spaulding screaming, drawing sympathy from her despite her best efforts to resist. His face, his eyes--his open screaming mouth--remained visible all the while he went around and around the edge of the dome; around; and around. Her heart then sunk ambivalently into simultaneous grief and relief when a mutilated Spaulding and a thoroughly shredded brown, striped raptor both exploded--and their messy remains were mercifully washed away.

Soon, it was over; and all was quiet--both outside and within them.

But it was clear that neither wanted to remain beneath this hellish dome any longer.

"Would you like to go inside?" whispered Rainy.

And Lara quickly replied:

"I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

Blakely was hands-on sort of commander. Unlike previous commanding officers he could think of, he was not above joining his men in their operations and doing a little bit of real soldiering. He much preferred serving in a squad and helping secure an area to sitting back in an command post somewhere sending down his instructions from on high. It made him a better leader--better able to respond to the needs of his soldiers, and better able to anticipate or preempt their problems. He didn't see much point being in the area of operations if he wasn't planning on being any use to anyone, so he thought nothing of helping Third Squad secure their quarter of the city. There was little he hadn't already taken care of, command-wise; so there would have been nothing for him to do as an armchair leader in this AO in any case.

Or so he thought before he emerged from a building and realized there was X920 in flight.

One he hadn't authorized.

Within a second of seeing it himself, he began to receive reports from other squad leaders who were also seeing it, and who were also confused: Without authorization, it should not be even _possible_ for the X920s to fly. He attempted to call his equipment sentry at the landing zone, but he received no answer from him. He then received the missing-men report from First Squad--which told him who these thieves were, but not how their theft was accomplished. Only his pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Sanchez, could answer that question--since he controlled the relay terminal between the Operations Force's equipment and their uplink security satellite. When he called Sanchez, though, he received no reply. His PADD analysis of the signal told him that the helicopter was receiving, but for some reason his pilots weren't answering his calls.

That was when the first sickening feeling began to settle into his gut.

Realizing, but utterly unwilling to accept it, he punched in the deactivation codes for the X920s so that he could watch the two thieves, Doc and Cavanaugh, fall to their watery end--but nothing happened. Thinking it must be a mistake, he switched the PADD's settings so that the interface would give him contact through to Washington D.C. and to Jake Corbin's secure NSA terminal; but there was nothing there either. Nothing. No satellite. No response.

They were cut off completely.

They were trapped.

Screaming at the top of his lungs and smashing his PADD beneath his heel made him feel slightly better --temporarily--but it accomplished little more for him.

* * *

Kini had lowered himself into the giant, white-smoking hole at the top of the stuppa when the soldiers' fliers had begun to descend around him. Once in the hole, he had found that there were openings in the walls of the chasm that could be entered or climbed, up or down. At the time, he had thought he might use one of the passages to return to the throne room to finish the job of disposing of the soldiers and, finally, the False One, Lara Croft. But before he could leave the chasm, he had heard the sounds of struggle, and was drawn to their source. After that, he had been privileged to witness the most magnificent thing he had ever heard.

Two of the creatures, two of the beasts of the cavern jungle, had attacked Colonel Spaulding on a lower ledge of the chasm. He had fought them admirably; but the second of them, the brown striped one, had trapped him and had taken him with it into hell.

And what a hell it had been!

Those screams! Almost magnificent in their utter purity! A death so absolutely spectacular that nothing Kini could think of could compare to it. Spaulding's cries had been pitiful; but the two wild beasts' cries had been magnificent enough to bring tears to his eyes! Such perfect acceptance of the agony falling over them! Such courage on the threshold of annihilation! When Kini died, however Kini died, he only hoped he would go with half as much stalwart fortitude as they had revealed in their final shining moments. For, what was there in life that could bring the soul to such a height of pure excellence as the dissolution of the body? And what value can dissolution have if the soul is not aware of it? A quick death means nothing; but a prolonged, exquisitely agonizing death--that would be a glorious death indeed! A death for a warrior!

He sat in quiet meditation at the edge of the chasm for a moment of contemplation, but eventually decided that he would have to continue his quest. Somewhere in this place, the False One, Lara Croft, was lurking--spewing her lies and sewing the seeds of her seductive evil in the thoughts of those around her. How had she managed to escape the Trials? He wondered. Little Rainy Blue-Sky Hedgebrook had witnessed falsely for her that she actually _completed_ her Trials; but how could he know? He certainly could not have survived them himself, so he could not possibly have been there to see. Besides, Qawalynn can't be from the hated North--she couldn't possibly be one of those white-skinned devils. She simply _couldn't_ be.

It was something that he would have to prove--to her, to himself--but he had a knife in his sheath that would do the job nicely once he found her.

But, of course, first he would have to find her.

Where had she gone?

* * *

It was amazing that a craft so intricately complex in its apparent design and obvious technology should have so simple a means of access; but when Lara considered it plainly, it occurred to her that there would be no need for any complex security or atmosphere containment for a ship whose hull was so perfectly, so thoroughly, protected by that utterly impenetrable defense shield. That Rainy could simply hobble to one of the large conic protrusions and press his fingers into a slot to cause a door to slide to a side didn't surprise her at all--after she had finished watching it happen.

What was inside of the vestibule passage beyond, however, did surprise her--and it surprised her quite thoroughly:

"My guns!"

She squeezed past Rainy where he hesitated in the doorway and she entered the ship.

The inside of the ship was dark compared to the ship's rooftop. What light there was inside was coming from the metal itself--from the floor, the ceiling, and the walls--with the ceiling metal shining most brightly. By it, she saw the ship's consoles, its forward view screen, and a number of other structures that were incorporated into the large, round, console-column that filled the center third of the cabin. The light was too dim to reveal much of the details around her, but she felt oddly comforted by everything she saw. It all seemed familiar and acutely non-alien. In fact, though she hadn't considered it consciously at the time, the ship's interior felt quite homey. However, before going forward to explore the interior, Lara was first drawn to the two Colt Thunderers laying on the floor just past the entryway.

"How the hell did _they_ get in here?" wondered Rainy.

"They're blessed," Lara proudly assured him.

"Blessed, my foot," Rainy scowled. "That's just ridiculous."

Rainy's words stung a tender place in Lara's heart. But she remembered how little he really understood about what she had been through that day. Her highs--and her utter lows. She forgave him instantly.

"Rainy, Rainy, Rainy," She gently scolded, whispering, kneeling before her two prizes. "Sometimes you're just too concerned with literal things."

"Shouldn't I be?" asked Rainy, stepping into the control center of the alien craft. "Look at this place. It looks pretty 'literal' to me! Whatever the reason those guns are here, Lara….well, I'm sure they'd still be here if Grampa Bean had '_blessed_' them for you or not."

"Perhaps," Lara replied, "but I doubt _I_ would be."

That made Rainy pause and listen.

"Your way of looking at all this makes sense for the way you're coping with it," she said. She remained kneeling next to her guns, gazing up at him thoughtfully. "It's what made sense for me, too--back when this all started. But sometimes what we believe about a thing is just as important as what we can prove. You know, I am just as sure as you are that there is a rational reason for these two pistols finding their way back to me. But it's more important to me that they seemed to have come back on their own. That they _chose_ to come back."

"_Chose_ to come back?" he said, fascinated and repelled.

"Yes," Lara said, returning her weapons to her too-long-empty holsters. "It means they've forgiven me."

"Forgiven you?"

"Yes."

Lara was thinking about Spaulding. And about Ross--twenty-one years old with a child on the way. Her guns had forgiven her; and with their proper weight now returned to her hips, she could now forgive herself.

"It doesn't always have to be rational _or_ irrational, Rainy," Lara said, standing. "Sometimes it's _both_."

"If you say so," Rainy said.

Rainy didn't understand. But Rainy wasn't Lara Croft. Or Qawalynn.

And he clearly wanted to put issues of the metaphysical behind him. He wanted to get down to business.

He moved toward a console.

"What are you doing?" Lara asked.

"In the Tomb Raider, I can sometimes get this screen to come on," he said.

"Is this whole craft just like the other one?" she asked, slowly moving toward him, examining everything around her.

"Mostly," Rainy said. "Some differences. Superficial ones. Here."

He brushed some dust from the console and begun to run his fingers along the alien figures printed there. He had uncovered an entire line of alien markings and was hesitating to press one of the alien switches when Lara kneeled beside him and began to examine his discovery in the dim overhead light.

"Let me see if I can call up the Tomb Raider," Rainy said.

"'Call it up'?" she asked.

"Like I said, they're in constant communication."

"You said they communicate through the Interlocutor and the ILC," Lara said.

"No, that's just how we moderate their communication," Rainy explained. "The two ships are constantly trying to talk, whether we're there or not. The two resonance fields can actually interact from all the way around the world; but we've been using the ILC and the Interlocutor to change the messages the ships think they're sending to each other."

"Change them? You mean _randomly_ change them?" Lara asked, appalled at the thought.

"Pretty much," Rainy said. "I mean, we figured some things out--how to make the Tomb Raider drop its shield, for instance. But we've been pretty much just trying different shit. We've always wondered what would happen if there were two Tomb Raiders working from both locations."

"Then, your group had never actually been to this ship before?"

"How could we get to it?" Rainy asked. "Blow a hole through the mountain side and drill down to it? I suppose we could have guessed its depth, but we figured it had to be buried in the rock. We didn't know about this place. No one knew."

"And you said the effect of the resonance field was larger here, was that true?"

"That's true," Rainy said. "No one knows why."

Rainy was examining the dusty console top, obviously looking for something specific. He wiped a swath of dust away, revealing still more alien characters.

"What are you looking for?" asked Lara impatiently.

"A line of symbols with this one," he pointed to one and then another half-faded character, "and one sort of like this one. It'd be nice if everything in here weren't covered in dust."

"Like this one--"

"Yes," Rainy said.

"But not like this one," she said, murmuring to herself, pointing to one of the two characters. "_Kurika_."

The word had left her mouth as though all by itself.

"What did you say?"

"_Kurika_," Lara said--realizing only afterward that the word she had spoken hadn't been in English. She paused thoughtfully.

"What?" gasped Rainy. "What's 'koorika'?"

But Lara wasn't sure herself where the pronunciation had come from. It was like a dim memory, stirring in her mind. But, like riding a bicycle--where one can feel one's certainty of technique no matter how dim the recollection may be--the character '_kurika_', and all of the other words laying half-concealed in the dust around it, looked not only familiar, but perfectly legible.

"This character _says_ '_kurika_'!" she proclaimed assertively, declaratively. "And this one says '_leisto_'..."

"That's impossible, Lara!" Rainy gasped. "You _cannot_ read this writing!"

"Yes, I can," she said, quietly assuring him--and herself. She dusted off more of the console's surface. It was difficult to make out the characters in the dim light. "'_Yandin_', '_hikkooth_', '_rheem_', '_thannoth_'--"

"No," balked Rainy disparagingly. "Then, just what language do you think this is?"

"I don't know."

"Then, when did you learn it?"

"I don't know," Lara said. "But I know how to read it. And speak it: '_Kurika windo, nanden optikan ruheen yameth goh_.' I can read these. I can read all of these."

"No, no, no, no!" Rainy cried. "We've had linguistics experts working on these markings for forty years, Lara! No one can figure them out! They're not from Earth!"

"You see, the lines on the bottom of each character refer to pronunciation," Lara explained, entranced and compelled, running the tip of her finger along the lines of the character she was examining. "The shapes on top are pictographic. But there's interaction between the two--you see here? That's for connotation. Words can have the same meaning and yet have subtly different implications."

From his stunned expression, Rainy revealed how Lara had, in two seconds, de-mystified an enigma linguistics experts from three different counties had taken twenty years to unravel!

"'Seeing interface'," Lara translated. "It's saying: 'if you want to have a visual interface'; but the conditional tense is really only implied…."

"Lara!" Rainy gasped in awe.

"'Main systems must be turned on'," she continued.

"Lara!" Rainy insisted. "You are _not_ reading this!"

"I am."

"How?"

"I don't know."

But she wiped the console before her with her palm and brushed the dust onto her shorts. She very quickly returned her hand to the console to run her finger along the line of characters above the screen. She read silently while Rainy shook his head skeptically. Before he could express any more doubts, however, she reached past him to press a button on the other side of the console.

"Lara, wait--!"

But suddenly the screen came to life--along with all of the other screens in the ship. The light from the walls, floor, and, especially, the ceiling overhead, suddenly increased; and the dust all over everything began to mysteriously vanish--excluding the dirty smudge Lara had smeared on her shorts leg.

"Oh, fuck!" whispered Rainy. "What did you do?"

"I turned everything on," Lara said.

"I see that!" Rainy said. "How?"

"The button said 'ON'."

Lara chuckled, but Rainy didn't.

"How can you read this language?" demanded Rainy, his skepticism finally defeated and overwhelmed.

"I don't know," Lara replied, "but I sure wish there were someone around who could tell me."

And then--just like that--there _was_.


	28. Chapter Twenty Seven: Qawalapeque

"_Mark my grave_

_And call the winds of torment_

_Remember me now_

_And feed the wind with your dreams_

_Feel my name_

_And feel the blood in your veins_

_Now the tide will turn_

_I will live on through you_

_Mark my name_

_Upon the flesh you create_

_No, don t cry for me_

_My son_

_Myself..._

"_All those who seek the truth _

_With questions still remaining_

_Now listen closely_

_And will be so clear_

_I am a messenger_

_A bringer of light from the other side_

_So chosen to teach while drifting_

_Between lives..._

"_I m standing at the door of time_

_I see life complete_

_Oh, father, where will I be_

_When I meet my time?_

_You will pass on and follow me_

_Into the sanctuary..._"

**Sanctuary.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:** **"**Qawalapeque.**"**

Morigushi had first met Sanchez in the Project's Flight Operations Orientation. Their class had consisted of only seven participants. They were seven of the very best helicopter pilots the United States military could produce. They had been a clique. An elite cadre in the Operations Force. They had also been friends. Together they had flown some of the most dangerous missions ever attempted (even if also the least publicized). No loyalty could supercede the one which had bonded these seven brave souls.

No loyalty save one.

Sanchez had always been cocky. He was hot-headed and impatient--especially when it came to their government's insipid politics, its lethargic legislature, and its corrupt electorate. What they couldn't or wouldn't do, Sanchez--calling them all 'gutless'--had always been willing to do himself. He had always been the first pilot to forget that his role as a soldier is to serve and obey rather than to enforce policy himself. He had fired more rockets on his own than he had ever been ordered to--breaking cover during any number of reconnaissance missions, entirely on his own authority. Had he been right? Most of the time, at least? Maybe. But it was no surprise at all that Sanchez should join Corbin in his quiet usurpation. It was easy to imagine his thoughts: The excitement of Corbin's vision, his promises, his so-called genius--and the anger they, and so many others, shared at a world unwilling to accept right rule. Corbin offered a short-cut to what Sanchez no doubt assumed everyone in the Project already believed was an inevitable future.

But, even if this 'future' still happened, it wasn't going to include _him_.

It had been the hardest thing he had ever done. As a combat pilot, he had killed many. Maybe more than he could count. But he had killed them from _afar_. This was the first time he had stood on their ground, literally toe-to-toe with them, and had watched the life drain from their trembling eyes. Having to physically fight with his victims had been like going to trial for their murders--with them themselves as witnesses. He had been accused, tried, sentenced, and eternally punished--all in the space of the few horror-choked seconds it had taken to wrestle with them for control of his pistol and, then, to gun his good friends dead. It had not been his choice--there _had _been orders, there _had _been a just cause; but, unlike any fire mission from the air, this time, when he washed the blood from his hands, it was no mere metaphor. He was shaking. And there were two dead bodies leaking into the lake: Chief Warrant Officer Sanchez and his crew chief, Sergeant Avi Yasir.

Morigushi hadn't included Sergeant Patterson in his plan. He must have known, though. Presciently, he had hadn't been there to help either side during the struggle; and now, silently, he was inside of Sanchez's orphaned helicopter, pressing buttons and punching keys and doing exactly what needed to be done. He reported that the gyro that they had been ordered to activate, Gyro 17, was up and on its way out of the cavern system. Soon, the colonel would join them there at the LZ.

And they could leave this God-forsaken place.

* * *

He was just a shadow at first.

He swept up from seemingly nowhere to cast himself across her and Rainy's backs. But then the air had begun to move, and he became a real presence in the room. He made Rainy yelp, and he made Lara jump but before she could spin, raise her pistols, and become aggressive, she heard the sound of his voice; and it instantly calmed her.

"_Hello, Lara_," he said.

And there was peculiar familiarity to him far beyond his clearly human form.

He was a man. Caucasian. Average height and build. He wore a strange and yet not entirely unfamiliar suit of plain brown clothing. He was middle-aged but vital. He possessed a strikingly handsome face.

As their eyes met, there was a moment of curious pause. Each seemed to evaluate the other. Lara judged him cursorily, but his judgment of her seemed much more profound. More emotional. There was a look on his face that suggested _familiarity _with her. Her shape. Her face. And, though she, naturally, could not reciprocate this sentiment, there was something about this stranger that _did_ fascinate her. So fascinated her, in fact, that it took her another full second to realize that he had, mysteriously, just addressed her by _name_.

"_I've been waiting a long time to meet you_," the stranger continued, smiling.

"Lara!" gasped Rainy.

The boy's exclamation suggested an oddly deeper menace than had been Lara's instinctive reaction. He was seeing something in the stranger that Lara obviously was not. Still, she dismissed his qualms.

"_Who are you?_" asked Lara. "_How do you know my name?_"

The stranger chuckled soothingly, and it put Lara even more at ease--though it only made Rainy more apprehensive. The young boy gritted his teeth at the stranger and snapped hard glances at Lara, futilely attempting to catch her eye. Lara was focused on the man. So focused, in fact, she neither acknowledged Rainy nor the strange fact that the man hadn't even glanced at the boy.

"_Where did you come from?_" she asked the stranger. "_How did you get in here?_"

"_First let me look at you!_" he replied, kindly, regarding her with longing, sad, and admiring eyes.

He shook his head as though overcome with inner turbulence and some mysterious emotional regret. In a moment, however, he raised his eyes, smiled, and sighed with grateful relief

"_So many things to ask you_," he said. "_So much to say!_"

"Lara!" gasped Rainy, still protesting.

But Lara shushed him with an impatient gesture, nearly causing herself to miss what the stranger said next. It sunk in only slowly that: One: the stranger wasn't speaking to her in English (nor was she replying in her Grand Island's Mother Tongue); and: Two: the stranger had just said: "_I am your father_."

* * *

_No breath stuff gone._

_New air fresh like._

_Tasty like smells!_

_Bigger never gone in place._

_Places after places!_

_Up! Up! Up!

* * *

_

"_My father?_" gasped Lara, a great many emotionally potent things welling up at once.

First, the stranger who was apparently not a stranger to her was speaking to her in a language that she had believed she had invented for herself in childhood for use in her grade school diary, of all things. That she should hear her 'invented' language spoken to her at all, let alone that she should hear it from so bizarre a source, let alone that she should speak it herself so easily and so fluently after so many years of abeyance…It made her skin crawl.

And yet, with this stranger, and with his less strange language, she had discovered an unaccountable comfort and solace. She had thrown herself down to this place, through certain death, because she had felt _called_ here. Called _home_. And this stranger, calling himself her father--his voice, his demeanor, even his slightly unusual but completely familiar facial expressions… It was all having an almost _tangible _effect upon her mind. She was feeling a satisfaction whose cravings hadn't even consciously voiced themselves. He was the answer to a question she had never even asked.

Still, there were doubts. With Lara, there were always doubts.

"_But my father was Eliot Winston Croft_," Lara explained. "_He died before I was born._"

"_No_," the stranger said. "_I am your father._"

"_No?_" Lara snapped, alarmed at the stranger's curtness.

"_No_," he asserted. "_Your DNA matches mine to within a tolerance of 99.999995 percent certainty of paternity_."

She couldn't t believe he was serious. Was this how he would attempt to convince her that he was her long lost father? Through cold figures and impassive eyes? Granted, she had been inclined to believe him right from the start: After all, she had thrown herself through death itself to come here to find him. But it made her place her hands upon her hips and raise her eyebrows to hear him rattle off probability calculations at such a moment. Where was his father's warm embrace? Where was his tearful insistence that she trust her instincts and her feelings feelings any fool could see were apparent in her eyes and in the tremolendo of her voice! He argued his case as though before a court of law. He sounded more like a machine than a father.

"What s going on?" insisted Rainy, trying and failing to catch the eyes of either speaker. "I can t understand a word!"

"Shut up, Rainy," Lara said.

"_Besides_," the stranger continued, "_Eliot Winston Croft was a human. You are not._"

That made Lara laugh out loud.

"_That s absurd!_" she snorted.

"_Surely you knew it on some level, Lara_," the stranger said. "_Your strength, your intelligence, your innate knowledge, your ability to speak in this language. You may resemble these creatures, but you are not one of them_."

And she sobered. She had to admit that the thought had crossed her mind. More than once.

"_Then, what am I?_" she asked.

"_We are Gaian_," said the stranger, who was beginning to seem less and less strange by the moment. "_Our planet is Gaia. It lies 8752.513 light-years away in a sector of space Earth science has charted as Theta Gamma--_"

"_Wait a minute!_" shouted Lara, feeling overwhelmed. "_Slow down! I m an outer space alien? How--?_"

"_I told you_," continued the man calling himself her father. "_We are Gaians. We are from a world that is 8752.513 light-years--_"

"_Stop it!_" Lara shouted, only then herself realizing that she was cradling her aching head in her hands.

"Lara?" asked Rainy, tugging her shirt-tail gently. "What s wrong?"

But Lara was too busy trying to focus through the conflicting emotions coursing through her exacerbated by the unaffected face of the man who would be her father. He stared back blankly. He seemed utterly without sympathy or affection. A mild rage built and burst forth in a shout:

"_What kind of father are you supposed to be?_" she demanded. "_Can't you see what you are doing to me?_"

"Lara," insisted Rainy, stepping between his precious friend, Lara, and this strange, strange, stranger. He gritted his teeth, and he growled; challenging her to dare ignore him again. "What the fuck are you saying? You tell me right now!"

Lara finally acknowledged him.

"He says he's my father," Lara said wondering for a moment if she had said the words in proper English.

"That s impossible," Rainy assured her. "He s not real."

"_You shouldn't trust this one_," said the man distastefully, glaring at Rainy across an offended, upturned nose.

"_Why not?_" asked Lara, reclaiming a small measure of her momentarily lost resolve.

Rainy continued: "He s just a hologram. They found one on the other ship, too."

"_Is it true?_" snapped Lara. "_Are you some kind of illusion?_"

"_I am your father_."

"_Are you a hologram?_" she insisted.

"_I am--_" stammered the man, "_I was. That is_…"

While he spoke, the ground near her feet began to hum and gently vibrate. A nearby floor panel slid aside and a rectangular mantle of foggy glass began to rise, like a coffin unearthing itself. The eerie sense that they were disturbing a tomb became macabrely acute when it became apparent that within the glass mantle there was a wrinkled, ancient, eons dead and yet undecaying corpse. Baffled, muted, and feeling sadly regretful, Rainy and Lara both stared at the dead body and its mechanical resting place with their mouths open and their aching hearts beating fast.

"_500 million years is a long time to wait, Lara_," the man said. "_This is your father._"

"_I don t understand_," Lara whispered, finding it curiously easy to slide between English and her invented language.

"_For 500 million years_," the man explained, "_this man and this ship's intranueral computer interfaced freely. But the stasis field preserving him was only designed for periods of stasis of five million years or less. Consequently, he aged. A million years ago, he was an old man but alive. Today, I receive no neural input from him at all_."

Seeing Lara beginning to hyperventilate before the risen mantle of metal and glass, and seeing the body within it, and failing to understand either the man's words or Lara s seemingly increasingly frantic reactions to them, Rainy began to panic.

"What is it?" Rainy demanded. "Damnit! What is it?"

"_He s my father?_" whispered Lara, sadly. Reverently. She gently wiped a swath of moisture from the glass. "_What was he waiting for?_"

"_For you_," said the man.

"_Me?_" lamented Lara.

"_You and your mother_."

That snapped Lara back from grief and confusion and returned her to her usual keen self assertiveness.

"_My mother!_" she gasped, turning to face him. "_Where? Where is my mother?_"

"Lara," Rainy pleaded, his voice now hushed, his spirit beginning to wane. "Please tell me what s going on…."

"_I don't know where she is_," the man said. But then his eyes turned suddenly cruel and hawkish, and he pointed them toward little Rainy: "_However, he might._"

"Please tell me," Rainy whimpered, looking at the floor not yet even aware of how _two _pairs of predatory eyes had begun roving over him. He gasped with a desperate blend of helplessness and shock when Lara's hands wrenched into his shoulders, seizing deeply of his collar, lifting the little boy helplessly off of his feet.

"Where is she, Rainy?" shrieked Lara, slamming him into a wall. Her eyes were feverish with hatred and anger an anger Rainy had only seen aimed at guilty others. Soon to be _bleeding_ guilty others! She shook his helpless little body and she shrieked into his face: "Where is she? Where! Where!"

"W-Where? sobbed Rainy plaintively. "Where _who_? Who's 'she'? Lara, I--!"

"My _mother_," Lara snarled, baring her teeth like fangs. "Where is she? Tell me now! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me it all stop lying!"

But Rainy was limp with horror. Color was draining from his face. He could barely make his lips move, let alone answer let alone fight for survival against this woman juggernaut whose earlier promise of protection had apparently not been meant to include protection from her herself. Weak willed, wounded, and limp, Rainy trembled and closed his eyes.

"I don t know," Rainy sobbed. Whimpered. "I don't know. I don't know."

"_He's lying_," the man said. "_He s one of them. He knows. He must_."

"Don't lie, Rainy!" Lara demanded. She imagined a sickening image: A laboratory, filled with sharp instruments, vats of red-tinged goo, hints of sadistic experiments, and parts of her mother in jars. "Tell me the rest!"

"I--" sobbed Rainy, pleading for mercy. "I told you everything. I swear I did. I don't _know _anything else."

Lara froze. For the first time in minutes, she could see Rainy. Truly _see_ him. She felt ashamed of herself.

She lowered him gently to his knees to let him cry in peace. Her hand caressed the cheek of this boy whose face was usually so fierce, fearless, and tough. It crushed her inside to see that face now tear tracked, puffy, and tender to the touch. She was furious with herself for having reduced him to this. She had almost forgotten that Rainy was just a little boy even if an extraordinarily courageous one. She had forgotten that he was her only living ally in the world. Truly, her one and only friend. She would _never_ forget it again.

Lara whispered to him: "I believe you."

She turned back to her 'father'.

"_I believe him_," she stated. "_He doesn't t know_."

"_Don't believe him_, the man insisted. "_He s one of them_."

"_One of whom?_" demanded Lara. "_What are you talking about?_"

"_The ones who will destroy your world_."

It was quite a perfunctory way to suggest such an outrageous thing. Surely, her grandfather, her uncle, and their pet Project posed quite a threat to a great many people all over the world; but that their tinkering and experimenting could do any more harm than the many, many, military and paramilitary organizations in the world was an absurd idea. Surely, even these alien ships couldn't pose any greater threat than Earth's own accumulated stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

"_The Tomb Raiders_," Lara said doubtfully, naming his enemies both for clarification and sarcasm's sake. The later intent was apparently lost upon her humorless host, however. He continued guilelessly.

"_I have been sparring with them for 5.235 years_," he said.

"'_Sparring'?_" echoed Lara, rhetorically; adding with a sigh: "_Of course: Hackers. You're a computer. Your enemies are hackers._"

"'Tomb Raiders'? 'Hackers'?" chirped Rainy, standing, attempting to assert his way, once again, into their discussion. "I heard that!"

"Shut up, Rainy, Lara snapped coldly, her icy tone silencing him once and for all.

The image of her father explained: "_500 million years ago, I came to this planet to study its ecosystem, as it is so similar to that of Gaia. However, to come here, I was forced to break certain safety protocols. At the time, it wasn't fully…legal…to come here. So I modified my engines so as not to be detected making the trip. I intended to come here and then return home before anyone missed me. However, in the process of traveling through hyperspace, my engines became damaged due to the modifications I had imposed. My ship crashed here and has remained here ever since_."

"_And I came with you?_" asked Lara. "_Me and my mother?_"

"_No_," he replied. "_Your mother had only just become pregnant with you before I left Gaia. When I didn't return home, she discovered what I had done and she followed me here. She had no way to know what had caused my malfunctions. She used my same modifications package to modify her own ship to avoid detection, and suffered a similar series of malfunctions. However, where my ship arrived but with damage, hers became trapped in hyperspace. For her, and for you inside of her womb, only moments passed; but for me, trapped here on this world, 500 million years crawled slowly by. I entered hibernation to wait, but I died waiting_."

The image of the man turned sadly toward the hibernation chamber, reluctantly accepting the idea of its distinctiveness: "_That is, he died waiting. Your father died waiting. I remain. For 500 million years, our minds mingled as one. Today, Lara, I am your father_."

"_My mother!_" insisted Lara, refusing to be side tracked by misplaced sentiments. "_What happened to my mother?_"

"_She finally escaped hyperspace_," it told her. "_Fifty-five Earth years ago_."

Lara shuddered excited and full of hope.

"_But that was when his people took her away_," it said. It pointed at Rainy and rattled more figures: "_to their hiding place at 35.476-degrees latitude and 113.321-degrees longitude_."

"_The Los Angeles Hacienda_," Lara said. "_Right beneath my feet. Right beneath my feet_."

"_You had nearly died_," he continued. "_Your mother was just able to place herself into medical stasis before the ship became uninhabitable, but she was unable to transmit a distress beacon to Gaia due to her engine's damage. Her ship, as I, is designed to self repair and return home automatically under such conditions. However, where my structural damage prevents me from escaping, her computer damage prevented her ship from coordinating its own repairs. For fifty-five years, we have been like two broken winged birds, each with the wing the other needs. I had been trying to help her so that she could help me: Transmitting her my repair data and enabling her ship to effect the repairs that I could not perform upon myself. It was a slow process. But, for 33 years, I was making excellent progress. But that was before your friend s comrades' interference began to affect us. 22 years ago, just before I could complete my repair work on your mother's ship and send her home, they cracked my defensive systems. They had attempted many methods of interference over the years, and I had been able to block everything else, but I couldn't t block this. They figured out a way to use my own communication signals to help them hurt your mother. There was nothing I could do about it. 21 years ago to this day, they enabled themselves to force their way into your mother's cabin. They dragged her out of hibernation and they took her body away. They murdered her for the possession of her ship. Since then, I have fought them with every fiber of my capacity; but in the past 5.235 years since he joined them I have gained no ground. I've lost control of nearly every system. Shortly, they will completely control me; and through me, they will have control over your mother's ship as well. When they are finished, they will have a fully functioning Gaian spaceship: I have already repaired its damage, despite my best efforts to break contact. They wouldn't allow us to separate ourselves, and they forced me to transmit my repair data despite myself. I hate them, Lara. And I hate this one worst of all. Had it not been for your proximity to him, I would have vaporized him just as I do animals, minerals, water, and everything else that attempts to pass through my repulsor field_."

Lara had been listening carefully. Quietly. Earnestly. But, in the end, the only emotions she could hear were of his erstwhile hatred of her precious charge, Rainy, and his Tomb Raider colleagues. She could hear no hint from him of what should have been her father's proper love. She yearned for a trace of that sound, and it never came. Her disappointment cooled her. She sympathized for her father's ghost this soul manifested in this machine but she also knew that any love she might have for him any familial loyalty she might feel tempted to express would be sadly misplaced. In the end, a _machine_ was all he was. And her precious Rainy was real. She seethed at his latent intentions.

"_Listen to me, 'father',_" she quietly growled, "_if you really were my father. You are computer. As such, I presume you are programmed to obey the instructions of the inheritor of your former user. Am I correct?_"

"_You are correct_," the man machine said, a note of what might have been genuine sadness in its voice.

"_Then hear this command:_" Lara said. "_You will not harm this boy. Do you understand that?_"

"_Yes_," replied the machine, bowing his eyes in what must have been deference. Or shame.

* * *

Escaping the pyramid top had been the easy part.

If Blakely had entertained the notion of attempting to shoot down the escapees with his X122 weapons, it had probably been a swift recollection of Doc's extreme expertise with the X920's in-flight antitank missiles that had sobered him. It had probably helped that, throughout the time they were still within eyeshot, Doc was petting his gyro's missile launcher as though it were a trusty hunting dog.

Blakely let the two deserters go; paralyzed, one should imagine, with a case of dreadful insecurity--though it was, admittedly, an insecurity no less shared by the two deserters themselves, both a awash in equal parts delight and dilemma at their puzzling and deeply suspicious turn of incredible luck. Why had there appeared before them a working gyro at just the moment they needed it? Each was ready to credit a deity and dust off their long doubtful spirits in order to offer a prayer of thanks until a voice crackled in their headsets that explained everything.

The voice was human, and its explanation was quite mundane.

"_Gyro 17_," crackled Morigushi s voice in their headsets.

"Chief?" replied Doc, perhaps relieved that his Sunday mornings would still be safe for sleeping off his Saturday nights.

"_Doc?_" asked the pilot. "_Is that you?_"

"It's us," replied Cavanaugh.

"_Wonderful!_" said Morigushi. "_I was worried. When I lost contact_--"

But Cavanaugh was already past the need for further sentiment. He was thinking about the journey before them. They would not be able to take their gyro through the caves; and, while swimming upstream in the underground river would be possible with the equipment they had commandeered, getting up that awful cauldron waterfall would absolutely impossible without somebody there to airlift them.

"We're gonna need help," Cavanaugh said. "Can you extract us at that waterfall?"

"_Delighted to_," the pilot said.

"Good," added Doc. "Double-time it. Blakely's got the beachhead covered. I'm not saying he's this smart, but if he did figure out you're involved, he'll have his backup teams lickety-split up that hillside. We've got to be out of range before they get close enough to lock-on missiles."

"_Gotcha_," the pilot replied, adding warmly: "_Doc, Cavanaugh: Glad to have you two along_."

"Yeah, I m sure," said Cavanaugh as their flier set down on the plateau between the inside mountain and the mouth of the cave where Lara had first turned her stellargetic weapons on them. There was a peculiar bitter-sweetness to the memory.

Soon, Cavanaugh and Doc had unloaded their scuba gear and diving propellers, and were running through the pitch black cavern toward the bank of the underground river on the other side.

To Morigushi, Cavanaugh transmitted: "_See you soon_."

* * *

The hologram of Lara's father was still averting his eyes when it added: "_I won't have to hurt the boy_."

On its own, Lara's head canted quizzically.

"_What?_" she asked.

"_He's going to kill himself_."

That caused Lara to flash a double take at the cowering little boy and then to nearly explode into a rage at her informant/father/computer.

"_What do you mean?_" she demanded.

"_My enemies will very soon bring a calamity down upon this world from which even you will be unable to protect your friend. Or anyone, for that matter. This planet belongs to an interstellar government called the Cooperative just as Gaia does, and a thousand other worlds. The stewardship of the Cooperative is both wise and just, but its laws are strict and utterly unrelenting where these types of infractions are concerned. Even your own great grandparents felt their brunt. We are lucky we are even alive to be having this conversation--_"

But Lara had fixated upon a word two sentences prior:

"_What 'infractions'_"? she demanded.

"_Illegal Advancement_," he said, coolly. "_The untimely acquisition of advanced technologies by unadvanced societies_."

Lara felt a breath whip into her lungs and stay there. It was several moments before any more air could follow either inward or outward. Somehow, somewhere--in her deepest, most visceral instincts--she could _feel _what he was telling her. Feel its imminence. Suddenly, the import of the day's events seemed laid plain before her. Somehow, she had already _known_ all of these things. That was why everything Bean had said had seemed so perfectly _correct_, even if presented irrationally. She had accepted his words _instinctively_. Because, somewhere, in the sinews of her very being, she already knew all of this. She already understood these peoples' thinking. Their _pathos_. She already instinctively feared their power. Their wrath. She didn't have to hear what the computer said next. She already understood even if not in any specific detail. She didn't need to be convinced her world was in danger--she already _knew_.

"_Until now_," the computer continued, unaware of her precognitive leap, "_your Earth has developed normally toward social and technological maturity. Until now, it has been fit to be ignored by the powers of the Cooperative. However, if it were to be learned that my wife's ship has fallen into human hands that it has been studied, and that its technology has been harnessed there would be no choice but to assault this world with a force your primitive adoptive people could only but vaguely imagine. Your human term 'Armageddon' can only begin to describe the catastrophe that would follow. The guilty and the innocent alike would be struck down. This world would be reduced to a stone aged wasteland; its population reduced to a pittance. Human social evolution would be reset. Your adopted people would have no choice but to begin their civilization once more from its very beginnings. From scratch, as it were_."

These words vindicated Lara's every unconscious intuition. With no choice now but to face a reality that she had once hoped might be but fanciful imagination, she felt herself trembling internally, stumbling literally backward two steps. She was flabbergasted and dismayed.

"_Barbaric_."

It was the only word she bring herself to utter; and, as it came out, it seemed to singe the air around her. Both sides were her own people barbarians all! and she was suffocating, trapped in-between. Her home was in danger. The only home she had ever known. Barbarians with no vision were to be destroyed by barbarians with no choice. Both sides would suffer unimaginable loss: One becoming self-loathing, the other becoming no more. They would feel culture-changing guilt, this Cooperative; but they would do it anyway. They would have no choice. She couldn't stand to hear any more of these horrid confirmations, but the computer kept talking anyway:

"_The Cooperative has good reason to be wary, Lara_," he explained. "_Worlds like yours have been allowed to enter the interstellar community in the past, and the devastation they have caused has been unimaginable. A Cooperative world must develop slowly. It must develop on its own and enter the community having developed its own resources and having made its own mistakes. Otherwise, as experience has clearly shown, interplanetary strife inevitably follows. Billions may die on this Earth, Lara; but trillions may die otherwise. The Cooperative will not hesitate to sacrifice this present population for everyone's greater good_."

"_What can I do?_" asked Lara, though she already knew.

"_This technology must not be allowed to proliferate_," the computer stated.

"_Their weapons_," Lara said, touching her pistols.

"_Yes_," said the computer.

"_I can stop them from developing them_," Lara said. "_I'll stop them before this technology can effect any palpable social changes_."

"_I m afraid the danger is more imminent than that_," said the computer, jolting her bravado. "_This planet is linked to the Cooperative through the reticular device they have implanted within its primary star. Because hyperspace technology affects the entire reticular network, should either or worse yet both of our ships become activated, the Cooperative would very shortly know of it. Within hours, the presence of advanced technology would be confirmed, and within days the assault would begin_."

"_Then I won't allow these ships to be activated, either,_" Lara declared.

"_Do that_," the computer affirmed. "_This world depends upon your action, Lara. If they should awaken our ships, be assured, it will bring final destruction upon them all_."

And then it occurred to her:

"I _am_ Qawalynn"

This time, it was the hologram that was flabbergasted:

"_Wh What?_" it said, stammering. Clearly, it was searching its vast files and memories for some mystery bit of misplaced data. "_How did you know that?_"

"_Know what?_" she asked.

"_Your name, Lara,_" the computer said. "_Qawalynn. Your Gaian name_."


	29. Chapter Twenty Eight: The Throne Room

"_I've _

_Been through Hell_

_And I'm back_

_Stripped to the bone!_

_I've _

_Been through Hell_

_Now I'm back _

_And I'm taking all I need!_

"_I've _

_Been through Hell_

_And I'm back_

_Stripped to the bone!_

_I've _

_Been through Hell_

_And I'm back _

_And I'm taking all I want!_

"_Bare bones!_

"_Bare bones!_

"_Bare bones!_"

**--Overkill.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:** **"**The Throne Room.**"**

Captain Hercule Adib was nothing if not practical.

Adib was not ambitious, nor was he greatly adventurous--at least, no more adventurous than the others of his Operations Force who had decided today to take political matters into their own hands. He had, at times, been alternately accused of being too technophilic, or too cerebral, or too icy; but he had never been accused of being indecisive, and he had never once been accused of cowardice.

Nor would he be so accused today.

His gyros patrolled the width and breadth of the windswept shoreline: The rocky, cliff-ridden wall of shattered land that barred the shore from the sea. Like a minor plague of locusts, his small one- and two-man rovers bounced from outcropping to outcropping, from altitude to altitude, from sea-level beach to sky-height plateau. The little black craft of his platoon coarsely absorbed the light from the near-noon sun above and cast little brown shadows across the surface of the inclining slopes below.

The greater concentration of their flying forces were swarming in the open crag between the two largest frontispieces of the rocky shore bulwark. This crag was a toothy, open mouth: A gaping gorge that opened to a pass winding its way between the two merging mountains whose primordial feet made the shoreline otherwise impassible. Short of a jet, no aircraft could muster what power it would take to scale the outer walls of these towering Andes giants--giants whose rippled toes made the beachhead beneath them a jagged and deadly impasse. The pass between the twin mountains' slopes was the only way a helicopter could navigate through to the Ingu Valley.

And it was also the only way a gyro could follow.

"Captain Blakely?" Adib demanded once more into his headset. "Chief Sanchez?"

"_There's no carrier wave_," the radio voice of his lieutenant, Choi, reminded him.

"We all can still hear each other," Adib said.

"_Local net_," Choi explained. "_Sir, we're out of contact_."

"I know," Adib conceded reluctantly. "Third and Fifth Squads, stay here: Mind the beachhead. Everyone else, let's go take a look."

And a twenty-strong armada of Lilliputian fliers swarmed up the mountain pass.

* * *

"_What do I do?_" 

Lara folded her arms and narrowed her eyes, steeling for the test. If there had ever been a moment for which she had been waiting her entire life, this was it--and it wouldn't come upon her suddenly, nor take her unawares. This time, she would face the fire; enter the fire--and willingly _burn_. She had graduated beyond having her actions decided by reaction. It was time to become proactive. Clearly, her computer-generated father had given his plan considerable thought--500 million years of thought--and despite whatever glory Lara might have felt her acts had earned her that day, she knew there could be no act more meritorious than the salvation of her planet--and there could, therefore, be no task more challenging. She waited sternly for her computer-father to issue her her orders and dispatch her on her mission. She waited--

Until a panel on the floor slid aside--

And a very familiar object was pushed up to be let loose on the deck. It rolled aimlessly until it settled near her boot.

"My Idol!" she gasped, surprising herself at how easily her relief overcame her shock--and then at how her _lack _of surprise was in fact her greatest surprise of all.

"_Your 'idol'?_" said the hologram. "_Curious. In human religion, an idol serves as a proxy for the divine. One worships an idol, correct?_"

"_Correct_," replied Lara, coolly satirizing her faux-father's mechanistic diction while she herself lavished in the catharsis of the moment.

The Idol glimmered with its delicate, lovely glow, as though it were reaching out to her with its light. With the return of her Idol--as far as she was concerned--all of her day's losses had been fully reversed: First she had been returned her blessed guns, and now her precious Idol. She kneeled tenderly near her lost prize and lifted it, letting it glow warmly in her palms. She thought she could hear the voices of the Ingu masses, chanting their hope-filled chants, and raising their adoring eyes to shower their affections over her heart. She raised her Idol and pursed her lips while a single tear that her computer-generated father could ever understand welled up and ran down her cheek.

"_You saved it_," Lara whispered.

"_I need it_," the computer obliviously replied.

"_It's so beautiful, in its way_," Lara said, gazing into its light. "_It only glows for me_."

"_Of course_," the computer said. "_You are the only Gaian on this planet_."

The remark piqued her curiosity. She took her Idol to her chest and stared at her father's proxy until it continued.

"_My enemies named the principle 'stellargetics'_," it finally said. "_The Gaian term would make no sense in your limited vocabulary. Stellargetics makes use of the intense quantum energies in the cores of stars. Stellargetic particles have a dual reality: They exist both artificially in objects we manufacture, and naturally within the cores of stars. By instilling stellargetic properties into common molecules, we can create substances that are virtually indestructible. We can create engines that never run out of fuel. We can create metals and other solids that glow with inexhaustible white light. The specimen in your hands was originally a carbon deposit that became crystallized through direct contact with my repulsor field. It has many properties that are unique, including a tendency to react synergistically to any genetically similar stellargetic field with which it comes into contact_."

"_Genetic energy fields?_" Lara asked. She had thought she had understood until it said its last sentence.

"_In addition to machinery_," it said, "_we also use stellargetic technology to enhance our bodies' tissues and neural capabilities. You were born with stellargetically enhanced muscles, bones, organs, and neural ganglia. You are a stellargetic being, Lara. Your very thoughts generate waves of stellargetic energy. Your idol reacts to your genetic pattern, creating synergistic harmony. It glows. Surely, you can feel it also. Similar technology is used for interneural telecommunication on Gaia and on other Cooperative worlds_."

"The walls in this place," Lara mused. "The ceiling's sunlight…"

"_It is all because of my repulsor field_," it said. "_My position here is fixed relative to this planet's core. When I landed, I was floating above a flat plain. I have remained in place while this landmass shifted and folded around me. When the mountains rose, they consumed me; and my presence gradually carved this artificial biosphere. Every molecule that seismic forces have placed in prolonged contact with my repulsor field has become stellargetically enhanced. Stellargetic particles in the walls cause this cavern to glow. Stellargetically enhanced molecular bonds prevent the waterways from eroding. All life forms here consume stellargetically enhanced nutrients and have themselves become stellargetically enhanced. Life forms born here grow to maturity, but gradually cease aging. Many of the individual creatures and plants here are themselves millions of years old. This cavern is a temporal cross-section of 500-million years of this planet's evolutionary history. Genetically, every species here is exactly as it was when it arrived--although stellargetics has caused many to become unnaturally gigantic or tough. The most recent significant arrival has been the humans. They built this fortress around me and worshipped me as a god_."

"_Their hydraulic systems_," Lara asked, "_you drive them?_"

"_Nothing passes through my repulsor field, Lara_," it explained. "_Waters from the mountains flow through here and become vaporized. The vapor that doesn't pass beneath me to the sea is thrust against the stellargetically enhanced walls of the tunnel. The walls do not erode, and the pressure against them is intense. The humans harnessed that pressure and created a network of hydraulic servos that suit their purposes. I do not begrudge them their ingenuity. After all, I have had nothing else to do for 500-million years other than wait for you_."

"_You speak as though you knew I was coming_," Lara said. "_This was only an accident; if I had_--"

"_It was no accident_," it assured her.

"_I don't understand_," she replied.

"_I called you to me_," it said. "_Since the day you were born_."

"_Interneurally?_" she deduced.

"_Correct_."

A number of things about the day flashed through her mind, and she realized the profound implications of her computer-father's act. A number of life-shaping, destiny-making choices that the computer had forced upon her from her very first memory of life onward. Everything was leading to this, and always had been.

"_And now I'm here_," she whispered.

"_And now you are finally here_."

"_They developed a religion around me_," Lara mused. "_I went through their trials to prove myself worthy to come to you_."

"_Impossible_," the machine replied. "_How could they have known you were coming?_"

The computer's ignorance shocked her.

"_I hoped you would tell me_," Lara said.

"_I cannot_."

Lara had been greatly hoping that he would be able to explain the Ingu myths. But by his coldly logical response, she could tell that she would never have the rational answers she would ordinarily crave. The source behind the Ingu's stunning prognostication would remain mysterious. Still, instead of dwelling on the unanswerable, Lara surrendered to the ecstasy of the mystery itself. Illogic could no longer perturb her: She was beyond such handicaps.

It was time to focus on the present moment.

"_So what is this?_" she asked, offering her Idol.

"_My enemies created that devise_," the computer said. "_It is a crude but none-the-less highly effective means of asserting a forced communication between my and your mother's computer systems. In addition to selective impenetrability, Gaian ships use their repulsor fields for sensory communication. They are highly sensitive to electromagnetism, gravitation, light, and other stimuli. It is impossible for my computer to ignore such sensory input. That thing you are holding exploits this function of ours. It's a transduction apparatus. It translates pattern data from their computer systems into an energy form that I cannot ignore. Because its carbon crystal was formed by my repulsor field, when it is energized, it exerts direct effects upon my central processing system. In effect, that carbon crystal is a direct link to my mind_."

"_But if you know what it's doing to you_," Lara asked, "_even if you can't ignore the stimulus, why can't you simply ignore the data?_"

"_That is the crux of their genius, Lara_," the computer said. "_My enemies very cleverly modified their computer logic to reflect and mimic the logic being passively generated by your mother's ship. My base programming does not allow me to ignore telemetry from your mother. My base programming overrides my higher logic in such matters. If I had been alive--if your father had been alive--he could have altered this facet of my base programming. But I cannot_."

"_And yet you preserved this device_," Lara said. "_I threw it into your repulsing field. At that point, you could have been rid of it altogether_."

"_Yes_."

"_Why didn't you?_" she asked. "_If it enslaves you_--"

"_It does not enslave me, Lara_," the father-computer assured her. "_It enslaves your mother_."

"_I don't understand_."

"_I am the means by which my enemies control your mother's ship_," the computer said. "_If the devise were destroyed, they would very quickly realize that your mother's ship is already self-sufficient and in no danger of self-destruction. At present, they fear that if I cease contact, your mother's automatic destruction will follow. Their control of my own systems is only superficial: My higher logic protects my most critical functions; but your mother's ship lacks the sophisticated thinking 500-million years of interaction with a living being provides. Once they realize they do not require me to control her, it will only be a matter of time before she becomes theirs. We must stop them before that happens_."

"_So we keep this device_," said Lara. "_We keep it here. Keep it safe_."

"_No_," the computer replied. "_We return it to them_."

"_What?_" Lara gasped in protest. She was incredulous; and deeply, personally, offended. "_Why?_"

"_The device is too far from its central support structure_--"

"_The moonlander_," Lara interjected.

"_Correct_," it replied--either comprehending her allusion or simply disregarding it. "_At present, it cannot transfer enough data to serve anyone's purpose. Its primitive radio technology requires that it be fed more electrical current than what its internal battery can provide. Its transfer rate is too slow. It must be replaced within its support structure so that its regular communications rate can be resumed_."

"_But, why?" _pleaded Lara, viscerally incensed at the thought of surrendering her precious charge.

"_Because I have modified it_," the computer said, seeming not to notice how her attentions had somewhat drifted. While it spoke, Lara was peering at the ground and at her devise, consumed in her own thoughts. It continued: "_Through it, I can counter-attack their computer systems, erase their databases, and prevent them from reestablishing control_."

"_They killed so many_," Lara murmured; hearing, but responding only to her own conscience. "_So many people gave their lives today to keep this away from them. Hundreds of brave people_."

"_Lara, you must give it back_."

"_No!_" she protested, clutching the device bitter-sweetly to her chest. "_Just hand it over? It was all for nothing?_"

"_No!_" snapped the hologram. "_Not for nothing. For everything. I must be destroyed, and this is the only way_."

"_Destroy yourself?_" gasped Lara, grappling with her indignation. "_I thought you couldn't do that anyway_."

"_I cannot_," it said. "_Only you can. But only after I have undermined their control of me_."

Lara inwardly relented. Bean had told her that the device would be the people's vindication. She was allowing herself to be too attached to her literal intentions. Lara realized that even in the computer's plan for it, her Idol would still serve its most essential functions: It would still vindicate the Ingu. It would still fulfill its destiny.

"_And my mother's ship?_" Lara sighed, cooperatively.

"_You must destroy her as well, Lara_," the computer said. "_But first you must free us both from their control_."

"_That's why you called me here_," she then concluded. "_That's why you preserved my weapons. Because you want me to fight for you_."

"_Because I want you to fight for your mother_," the computer said. "_Because I know my enemies well enough to know that violence is the only way to stop them. And because I knew that you would choose to save this world_."

"_I would 'choose'?_" Lara asked. "_I haven't much of a choice, have I? This is my home_."

"_Of course you have a choice, Lara_," the computer told her, "_You could go home--to your real home--to Gaia_."

"_To Gaia!_" she gasped.

"_Your mother's ship is fully programmed to take you there if you ask it to,_" it explained.

"_To Gaia_…" she murmured, thoughtfully.

"_You cannot imagine the wonders of our home world, Lara_," the computer continued. "_Your people will welcome you. They will educate you, train your body to its fullest potential, and every day you will feel beloved in way that no human can even imagine._"

Lara looked at her father's hologram, and saw traces of genuine emotions in its face.

"_It pains me to see you so weak and ignorant_," it said.

The temptation was shocking. It was an implication of the hour's revelation that she had kept out at the periphery of her thoughts until only that moment. The fact was, she _wanted _to go home. She had no choice at that moment but to admit it to herself. All along, all throughout her life, she had always sensed that the Earth wasn't where she belonged. And the promise extended to her was precisely the one for which yesterday's inexplicably homesick Lara most urgently longed: Love, development, striving. But _today's_ Lara had learned better than to crave such things. She had found the purpose for which she been born--a _real_ purpose. One that transcended birth and home and blood. The computer's offer stunk of the very self-indulgence her soul could no longer afford.

"_I_…" stammered Lara, tempted but conflicted, "_can't consider that. What would happen to the Earth?_"

"_Myself and your mother's ship represent the bulk of the threat to this planet_," it said. But it sighed and reluctantly added: "_But my enemies have other Gaian technologies hidden away. I do not know precisely where their research and development is taking place, but I can feel their stellargetics at work in near-space around me. With our ships gone, the planet will be safe for a time; but I can not promise for how long. Unfortunately, if **I **can feel what they are doing, we can be assured that in time the Cooperative will discover it as well. I am sorry, Lara, but if you do choose to return home, it may well be at the cost of the Earth._"

"_Then I cannot go_," she said.

"_This world's plight is not yours_," the computer argued. "_They have brought this destruction upon themselves. It is not your fault. And it is not your responsibility_."

"_I cannot leave_."

"_Additionally, there may be other options_," it said. "_You could champion the Earth before the Cooperative Judiciary Council. Perhaps you could find a diplomatic solution_."

But Lara could hear the falsehood in its voice. Computers make poor liars.

"_You don't really believe that_," she told it.

"_I want you to have a proper life, Lara_," it said. "_These people can't understand you; and you are only beginning to understand your own potentials. Here you will live a tedious and trivial existence. From Gaia, the universe will be your playground. I want you to embrace your birthright. Fight for me, avenge your mother, and return to your home. This world is not your responsibility_."

"_If you truly were my father_," she said sternly, "_and if you really have been watching me, even for a moment, then you must know: I am who I am_."

"_You are Qawalynn_," the hologram argued, "_not 'Lara Croft'_."

"_Exactly_."

It was clear the computer was baffled by her logic.

"_If you choose to destroy your mother's ship, there will be no other means of return for you_," it said. "_I urge you to reconsider_."

The faces of the Ingu filled her mind. Bean. The seer. Even Kini.

"_At the cost of my world?_" she replied. "_No_."

And the computer nodded. Her father's face smiled, knowingly.

"_As I said, I never anticipated that you would_," the computer said, "_but it would have been your father's wish_."

"_I have a destiny here_," Lara said, sighing. "_If I have a destiny out there on Gaia as well, well…it will find me_."

"_Very well_," the computer conceded. "_If that is your choice, then we must act quickly. There is very little time left. For the last two days, they have been increasing their use of Gaian technology. We are approaching a critical threshold beyond which the Cooperative will easily detect them. At this rate of escalation, minutes matter. You must replace the device in their transmitter so that I can eradicate their database. You must then immediately travel to their location at 35.476-degrees latitude and 113.321-degrees longitude and destroy your mother's ship_."

"_And what about you?_"

"_After you return their device_," it said, "_with your permission, I will set for self-destruction_."

"_Very well_," she acceded. "_But then there's a serious problem. Assuming I can get to the moonlander at all, there is still our escape to consider. It's a long swim, and an even longer climb. Besides, there are soldiers throughout this complex, and perhaps even more on the surface. If you must be destroyed immediately, what will we do with Rainy? He's in no condition for travel_."

"_I have a solution for all of these problems_," it said. "_But now you must go_. _There is no time to explain. You know all that you need to know for now._"

"_Fair enough_," she conceded. "_The first thing, then, is to get back up to the city somehow_."

The computer smiled.

"_My first solution of the day._"

* * *

The cauldron had remained an unnervingly fresh memory. 

Everything seemed just as it was last time: The two of them, Doc and Cavanaugh, treading the rough and angry water, watching sunlight vanishing into the mountain-sized cascade, or seeing it scattered in mirthless rainbow colors in all directions throughout the otherwise shadowy canyon maw. Their swim fins and air tanks and face masks made a significant difference for them in terms of physical comfort, but the eerie sense of deja-vu that flooded over them paid no respect to such superficial improvements. They were back in the deadly cauldron that had nearly killed them both; and, just like last time, they were coming up empty and alone. Despite how many men had gone in with them, with all of their weapons, and all of their technology--all of their planning and training--the only difference between this time and the last was that Tripp was dead now, too. They had lost everything: The mission, their leaders, all of their friends. It was time to cash in what chips they still had left. It was time to go home.

That was why they were so angry when, after being extracted via cable-harness to the hovering Chinook, Morigushi's flight chief raged at them:

"Where's the Colonel?"

"What do you mean, 'the Colonel'?" snapped back Doc, having only just crawled onto the relative safety of the helicopter's large empty floor and taking fierce offense at the insinuation that he didn't deserve to be there. "He's dead, man."

"Since when?" the flight chief demanded, using his headset to echo the crisis up to the cockpit: "Sir! He says the colonel is dead!" He then echoed Morigushi's response: "Get your ass up there!"

Doc nodded cooperatively and lurched toward the cockpit while Cavanaugh arrived at the top of the wrench-harness and was also brought through the cargo doors. Doc arrived in the cockpit first, but soon both soldiers were there, facing an outraged and horrified Chief Warrant Officer Morigushi who was shouting at them and flashing them glances and heated expressions even while also piloting their helicopter slowly up from the cauldron bowl.

"What the hell happened?" the pilot demanded.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" replied Doc. "He's _been _dead!"

"_No_…Oh, shit…" the pilot bellowed with an unexpected dread. "What are we going to do now?"

"Fuck it!" said Doc. "Get us the fuck out of here! Let's figure it out when we get home."

"But go where?" asked Morigushi. "It's going to be a real short trip wherever we go! Corbin's in charge of _everything _now."

"He'd shoot us down?" asked Cavanaugh.

"There was the colonel and there was Corbin," Morigushi said. "Nobody gives a fuck about _us_. As far as they're concerned, we're already dead."

"All the more reason to quit talking and start fucking flying," Doc said.

"Oh, God, what have I done?" the pilot moaned to himself.

But then, suddenly, as the helicopter cleared the rim of the cauldron gorge, Morigushi's eyes locked east and his lips trembled.

"Oh, fuck," he whimpered, "oh, fuck."

"What is it?" demanded Cavanaugh, straining to find a window pane with the correct viewing angle.

But the pilot's reply in word and tone was all that needed be known:

"Too late."

* * *

This was bad. Blakely couldn't reach _anyone_. 

At first it was simply his control lockout over the gyro fliers, but now it seemed that his entire communication network had gone down. He couldn't reach Captain Adib at the beachhead; he couldn't reach Chief Sanchez in his Chinook at the LZ; he couldn't connect to his tactical satellite uplink, nor contact Project HQ. Vlarnoff's PADD showed him how even the internetwork carrier signal had vanished. He and his men were more than a quarter-mile underground and were totally alone.

"We're fucked," said Lieutenant Thompson, who had been watching Captain Blakely feverishly struggling with Vlarnoff's PADD.

"We're alone," begrudgingly admitted Blakely, not yet allowing Thompson's despair to infect him. "For now."

After watching the traitors escaping on the fliers they had somehow commandeered, Blakely's twenty-two soldiers had been swept up in an anxious respite. From prowling and searching and executing expert infiltration-clearing tactics, they had been slowly lulled into futile complacency. All at once, and though scattered across the width and breadth of the city, they had all stopped whispering over their headsets, had stopped crouching and hiding behind the barrels of their weapons, and had come out into the open to watch while two of their supposedly unstealable fliers had been flown away by thieves. They awed at the ignominious silhouettes the two cast against the lonely cave-lit sky, and they congregated themselves into gossiping gaggles on the open streets to comment. With Doc and Cavanaugh's escape, their mission went on hiatus while their leader, erstwhile, pathetically struggled with the supposedly fool-proof technological conjuration that had utterly failed them.

"What now?" asked Vlarnoff bitterly.

"The mission," Blakely assuaged him, affecting a transparent calm. "So we got technical difficulties? _The mission_."

That was when Lieutenant McCray dashed out from behind a corner--which reminded Blakely that his headset was still set to the defunct internetwork channel. He switched his radio back to the local net and heard the same exciting message McCray was shouting, murmured in the chatter echoing in his headset:

"They spotted her, sir!"

Blakely growled elatedly.

"Good deal."

* * *

Kini's patience had paid its dividends. 

Somehow, he knew she would return.

This would be the final reckoning.

But he would have to act fast:

The others were already closing in.

* * *

Rainy was alone with him now. 

Lara had left the cabin after only a few more words, and most hadn't been in English. She'd spoken to her new holographic friend for what had seemed to poor Rainy like hours on end--inexplicably, he hadn't understood a word they'd said. How could Lara speak an alien language? How could she read one? It didn't make any sense; and it seemed quite clear that his now-taciturn guardian wouldn't be answering any more of his anxious questions than Lara had. He stood there like a statue watching him. Watching him like a hawk. Watching his every move--seemingly intent upon his every sound, and yet making not a peep in response to his inquiries.

It was just as Lara had said before she had left:

"_Don't expect much conversation from him; he despises you. But don't fret, he can't hurt you--I've seen to that._"

He had pleaded with her not to go. Why should she want to give them _back _their infernal ILC in the first place? Hadn't keeping it away from them been the plan all throughout? This was insane! Had the holo-manakin hypnotized her or brainwashed her or something? Who knew what that language stuff was all about! Who knew what he had 'beamed' into her brain! He'd watched her listen to alien words and respond by laughing, crying, shouting, screaming, and even threatening to bash _his_ brains in! What was _that _about? And now she leaves--doing the statue's bidding, no doubt--undoing every good thing they had ever done today? Had she forgotten about Corbin and his plans? Had she forgotten about the Ingu? How could she forget about _them_? How could anyone who had seen what they had seen that day do what she had gone out to do? It was insane.

Lara had told him to sit tight, be good, and wait for her to return; but in only a very few minutes later, Rainy's patience had already worn thin--as had his tolerance and his temper.

"So, you can't understand me?" he snapped at the hologram, who stared back impassively.

Rainy climbed from the deck and hobbled on his weakened, wounded leg.

"Where do you come from, huh?" he demanded, hobbling in a clumsy circle around the holographically generated alien. "Mars or something?"

For a second, he had thought he had seen its computer-generated, artificial, holographically generated lips twist a slight, contemptuous, smirk. It was instantly gone--gone swiftly enough to make Rainy wonder if he had actually seen it at all--but the sense that it might have been there, despite all, gave Rainy the imaginary evidence to justify an assault.

"You understood me!" he said.

He wasn't actually certain; but, still. True or no, this could _definitely _pass the time.

"You understood me, didn't you?"

The hologram stared down at him.

"I'm not afraid of you," Rainy said. "Lara said you can't hurt me. Is that true? That you can't hurt me? No matter what I do?"

If the hologram could understand him, or if it could possibly anticipate what Rainy was obviously considering doing next, it showed him no sign. Rainy wasn't discouraged, though; and he limped to the control station that he and Lara had been examining earlier. He climbed to the seat and swiveled backward toward his host.

"I'm pushing buttons!" he announced, plugging random controls. "Oh-li-la-li-la! I'm pushing buttons! I'm pushing buttons! What are you going to do about it?"

The holograph shifted its faux balance uneasily.

"Let's see," Rainy murmured loudly, pretending to be speaking only to himself, "'erase the hologram'…"

He let his fingers slide along the controls searching for recognizable characters. It hadn't strictly been a part of his job at the Hacienda to translate the Tomb Raider's character set, but after four years on a project, one tended pick up a lot about everyone else's jobs. Besides, he was only playing--it didn't matter whether he guessed properly or not. Still, in this case, he was fairly sure he had identified the proper figure on the board.

"'Kill'!" he announced, repeatedly pressing the switch. "Here we go! Kill, kill, kill…"

No reaction.

_Damn_, he thought.

Then, holding the button with one fingertip, so as not to lose it again, he began to search the board with his other hand.

"'Hologram'…" he murmured, "'hologram'…"

He searched until he found a reasonably interesting-looking character on the console. He didn't have any idea what it actually said, but nothing seemed out of order in his mind about holding the 'kill' panel and pressing this other one too. After all, it was basically what the Tech Section had been doing, more or less, for twenty years. Still, this was for _fun_, so he lied loudly:

"'Hologram!' 'Kill hologram'!" and his finger pressed--

"Wait!" shrieked the hologram--in perfect American English.

Rainy hadn't pressed the button yet. Inwardly, he had actually been quite hesitant to do so. In all actuality, he understood quite well how the system worked: Pressing random individual buttons was perfectly harmless; but pressing them in combination actually _did_ things--and 'kill' is a very dangerous key to start combos with. In any case, his host had fallen for his ruse--an unfortunate fact if it meant that Rainy's game was now over. He was determined to keep things in the cabin as interesting as possible for as long as possible.

"Well looky here!" Rainy said. "You can speak Human! What do you know about that?"

"Rainy Blue-Sky Hedgebrook, you nearly deactivated my third secondary power transfer subsystem's condenser module."

"And that's important?"

"It would affect the atmosphere you are breathing."

"Yeah? How so?"

"It would turn it off."

"Oh."

That would appear to be all the hologram was willing to say. But Rainy wasn't about to let him go so easily.

"Hey!" Rainy said. "You knew my name!"

The hologram returned stern silence.

"Okay," said Rainy, returning to the board. "Let's not kill the atmosphere…. How about this one? What's this? Is this the hologram?"

"Stop!"

Rainy looked at him and waited.

The hologram sighed.

"That is a logic support co-processor," it said.

"Will it turn you off?" Rainy asked.

"No," replied the hologram impatiently, "it will activate a subroutine I am trying to protect from you."

"'From me'?" said Rainy. "You mean, from the Tomb Raiders, right? Well, that's not me anymore. I'm not in that. I quit."

The hologram apparently intended to resume its stout silence, but Rainy would have nothing of it.

"You know," Rainy declared, "I can keep doing this kill-button thing all day long. You might as well just _talk_ to me."

The hologram lowered its stalwart gaze and condescended to survey him eye-to-eye.

"What would you like to talk about?" it asked.

* * *

It was the last thing Adib thought he would have to do. 

There was only one Chinook on the ground, and it wasn't Sanchez's; it was Morigushi's. It made his heart swell with anger. What had happened here? He incredulously circled in air while an advance team approached the site in full tactical mode. He couldn't believe he actually had to send tactical troops to recon a site held by friendly forces! He couldn't believe what he was seeing! He couldn't believe what he was _doing_.

It made him seethe, even from the air.

And what he felt from above was nothing compared to rage that would soon flow through him, from heart to fingertips, once he himself landed and looked at what his sickened advance team had already seen. Inside of Morigushi's ship, all of the control systems and internetwork equipment had been smashed; and Sanchez and his crew chief had been tossed in as wreckage, too; right alongside the mess. Left in there to cool in a dripping puddle of their own blood.

Adib's heart pounded; and its hard _thump-thump-thump_ was the only sound he could hear in the macabre cabin until a voice shouted from the outside:

"Captain, look!"

He did, and he saw his opportunity for vengeance.

It was Sanchez's pirated Chinook.

Escaping.

* * *

"This is amazing!" 

Rainy was happily prying as much information out of the hologram as he could. He asked about everything he could think of, every technical secret he'd ever wondered. About the Project, about the UFOs, about the defense fields, about stellargetics, about _everything_. And he had learned the most important secret of all: Unlike the mindless number-cruncher he had imagined his adversary was, this computer was just as conscious of its existence as he was of his own. More importantly, it knew more about him--and everyone else in the Tomb Raider Project--than seemed rationally possible. It knew them _personally_. It knew them by name, by habit, by tactics. All these years, it had been adjusting its responses to their probes according to the specific style of hacking each one had been employing. That was why some hackers had been able to do things other hackers simply couldn't; and it was also why cascade code revelations so often occurred--why the data stream so often seemed _alive_. Because, in a very real way, it _was_ alive. And, just like any living being, this computer was as curious about the Tomb Raiders as they had been about it. Over the years, it had turned its impressive capacities to researching their lives. Their likes and dislikes, their habits and hobbies, their _personalities_. Ultimately, its research aided it to battle its enemies more effectively. An astounding leap of intuition for a mere machine. Still, what this computer had done--amazing though that fact was--paled in comparison to _how _it had done it. How could a computer buried beneath the Andes mountains possibly see little Rainy Blue-Sky Hedgebrook skin his knee playing basketball two years ago in an underground lab complex in California?

It was the QFI resonance field. The computer called it its "repulsor field"--but it did far more than repel angry falling dinosaurs. It was hypersensitive. It reacted to everything--light, electricity, temperature, sound--_everything_. From the data the Tomb Raiders sent, this incredible, _incredible _machine could reconstruct what was going on in the lab--not only in the hanger, but _throughout_ the complex. Its systems were _that_ sensitive. It knew what Rainy had eaten for breakfast ten months ago. It knew what Jacob Corbin was up to at that very moment. It knew _everything_.

And yet even this wasn't the extent of its powers.

Rainy had asked if it could see where Lara was, and if it could show him what she was up to. It easily could; and soon the ship's viewing screens were filled with images of contemporaneous events throughout the cavern system. Rainy saw not only Lara, but also the soldiers eagerly stalking her--a sight that unnerved him--and he wondered: _Isn't there anything we can do?_

Before he could ask out loud, though, he recalled something the hologram had said in response to an earlier question about its own base-technology. Something that put a devilish grin on Rainy's face and made him giddy with anticipation.

* * *

It seemed as though the gunshots rained in from everywhere, and yet the young woman's feet made her body a veritable _streak_ of color and speed. She vanished around corners almost as quickly as she appeared, and it made Blakely dizzy to witness the deftness with which she dodged his bullets, his men's pursuit, and his abortive attempts to lay ambush. 

Blakely had to scatter his men far and wide throughout the city to create a dragnet complex enough to even keep track of the woman's incredible travels. She vanished in and out between buildings, appearing in one quarter of the city only to vanish and reappear in another. Blakely's men dashed in and out of places where sadly misled snipers atop roofs had claimed they had spotted her silhouette--only to flush out the no one who, it would frequently turn out, wasn't actually hiding there. Blakely's own command and control was stretched to its logical limits trying to control and coordinate the entire effort, and he felt as though he were commanding a battle against a dozen Lara Crofts, and not just this aptly nimble, subtly clever, incredibly fast, one.

"Unger! Leibecker!" he cried into his radio in response to the most recent sighting, "pull your teams around from the south-east! She'll try to break past you!"

And he himself leaped into a dash--reportedly, she was coming his way!

He, and the four men alongside him, ran toward the city's tallest, center building; where the Interlocutor still rested, awaiting its missing component--the component that all reports held Lara Croft to be carrying in her arms. He had placed a guard there to watch for any attempts at sabotage, but it was Blakely's conviction that she wouldn't bother trying to get back in. She was trying to find a way to escape the city altogether. She would probably make a play for the gyros on the smoke-stack roof; and then, finding those rides useless, she would make a go at the rafts at the lower level. To get to those places, she would have to go through heavy sentry guards--guards who had, indeed, been the first to spot her fleet, lithe, form, and then had been the first to give it chase. Now his troops had driven her well back from every known escape route. They had finally cornered her in a remote quarter of the city where Blakely could now proceed to reclaim his ILC from her. His men were closing around her like a noose about a slender, pretty throat.

"_There she is!_" a soldier's voice reported, its speaker breathless in his pursuit.

He heard gunshots screaming over the airwaves and throughout the street just ahead, and he quickened his pace--arriving around a corner just in time to see Croft herself, stammering in the open, clearly considering coming his way. He shattered her hesitation with a barrage from his own machinegun, triggering a chorus of like-minded weapons on his left and right. He watched disappointedly, though, as the young woman leaped from her place and vanished rather than falling properly dead.

Blakely cursed, but his voice was drowned from his own ears by the sounds of several of his troops speaking over themselves, trying to report:

"_She's gone in!_" one shouted.

"_It's that tunnel, sir!_" another also shouted.

"_Where's that go?_" asked another.

"She went _in_?" asked Blakely, knowing exactly where it led.

"_Yeah, she's gone!_" confirmed someone.

That was the passage leading down to a closed, sealed door beneath the city--Kroger's people had already reconned the place a half-hour earlier. From there, there was nowhere to run!

He shouted triumphantly:

"We've got her cornered!"

* * *

"We land!" announced Morigushi.

"No! Chief!" protested Cavanaugh.

"Attention, gyro fliers!" said the crew chief into his radio headset. "What are your intentions? Attention fliers!" And then to the others in the cockpit: "They're hearing, they're just not answering!"

"They're linin' up a strafe!" snarled Doc, seeing their formation and recognizing it well. "They don't care what we do!"

"Get us out of here, Chief!" ordered Cavanaugh. "Go! Go!"

But it was already too late.

They were much smaller, but there were twenty of them; and every one was armed with machineguns and rockets that they could fire even from flight. Maybe the giant helicopter could have flown high enough to get above their range, but there just wasn't enough time. Like a fistful of vengefully thrown pebbles, the tiny black avengers swooped up and over them, making their bird's metal skin rattle and rupture with ballistic vengeance. Sparks and shards dropped all over them like acid rain throughout the cabin as the Lilliputian raiders swarmed and stung like hornets--stung and stung and stung.

* * *

"We've got you cornered, Croft!" Blakely shouted into the passage from behind the corner of the big ornate doorway at the mouth of the down-sloping tunnel. "You can give up now and live if you like! We don't care either way!"

She didn't answer. He expect her to.

Really it was better this way: She was David Croft's beloved granddaughter. If she came home knowing _anything_ about what's been going on down here, she'd be a serious complication. The last thing they needed were witnesses--especially smart, pretty, and highly articulate witnesses. Those were the types of witnesses who testify before Senate committees and get nation-wide broadcast time.

"Ready?" Blakely whispered to other troops, assembled at the outer edges of the huge doorway.

Everyone nodded, and the team rocketed across the threshold into the tunnel; moving with rapid, thorough, cover-and-move tactical precision. They saw everything in the passage, and aimed quickly down on the target, who was still fleeing--having already escaped well past where Blakely thought the tunnel ended.

"_What?_" Blakely gasped, furiously.

The door at the end of the tunnel was open! Kroger had said it was closed! _Goddamn _Kroger!

"Don't let her get away!"

And he vaulted after her, his team scurrying into a wedge behind him and following him down, moving and firing and moving. And that was the funny thing: It was amazing that she could evade his weapons in such a confined space. He strafed--and his men strafed--and the shots glittered sparks from the strangely still-bright-white walls, and yet she didn't fall. Despite all their best efforts, she managed to dash all the way down to the bottom of the passage--where there was _finally_ a closed door cutting her off.

"We got her! We got her!" he announced, as she span to face him.

She was defiant and angry, this Lara Croft. He'd never seen her up close before. It was amazing how beautiful she was. So much grace and fire wrapped up in a such a tidy, petite, little package. She was big at the top and narrow in the middle and _gorgeous_ all over. She was incredibly sexy.

And her angry, angry eyes only made her _more _so.

"I don't know how you…" He began to say, changing his thought to: "Give it up, Lara. Just give it to me."

He extended his hand for the ILC while his men gathered defensively about him; but Lara stood obliviously.

And the door behind her began to descend.

"What?" stammered Blakely. "What--? Don't let her get away!"

He almost hated himself for this, but--

"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

And the men fired, and the weapons shook and shrieked and echoed--but the young woman stood there obliviously, her fiery expression unchanged.

Blakely was about to check his weapon, or his vision, or his sanity; but that was before the black, imprecise shapes behind Lara Croft--climbing over that descending door--came out from the darkened and amazingly large chamber behind them and came into stark relief against the bright white corridor all around him. His mind boggled, and his flesh _wrenched_ into trembling horror, and his sanity rolled around and around and around, and his feet wouldn't move, and his mouth couldn't speak, and his worst nightmare _ever _came out of his very imagination and into his daytime life! Despite how hard he fought to wake up from this dream, he just couldn't--wouldn't--_why can't I wake up?_ They were spiders the size of shopping carts, and they crawled through the very space were Lara Croft's body just suddenly _wasn't _anymore. There were dozens of them, and his men were already on the run--

But they were running _way too slow_.

* * *

Anyplace where there was a stellargetic field in operation, Rainy had learned, Qawalapeque, Lara's father--the spaceship--could project a holographic image. It was Rainy's genius idea to take the readings of Lara, which he had correctly anticipated the computer had already compiled, and use them to generate a 3-dimensional semblance of the agile young warrior that the computer could then project wherever in the city it chose. Rainy chose to make the semblance manually controllable, and he placed its movement under his own control; using a ship's toggle to navigate it, and a few ship's buttons to make it jump, or duck, or hide. And he even incorporated the computer's other faculties into his program to enable his video game Lara Croft to open and close the city's doors at will.

With glee, Rainy celebrated jubilantly as he successfully lured the bulk of the enemy troops down into a tunnel and straight into a pack of deadly spiders--whose presence he had already arranged. Rainy laughed and laughed while the soldiers scattered and battled and died--but Qawalapeque wasn't amused.

* * *

Lara Croft was back in the Throne Room.

The computer had used its repulsor field to launch her from the hull of the UFO to the lip of the aqueduct spillway, and she had retraced her steps back to where the men in black had left their moonlander/ Interlocutor apparatus thing. There had been a guard there of course; but he was easy enough pickings. In fact, it was a good thing he was there. The UFO hadn't been equipped with any hand tools she could have used on a piece of human technology, so the large hunting knife that that big lug had been carrying came in quite handy as a screwdriver/allen wrench.

So much had changed in such a short time. Working with her hands in the electrical guts of the men in black's machine gave her the time to consider some things. From 'Lara Croft'--meager, pathetic--she had become 'Qawalynn', for whatever the name implied. And it would seem to imply a quite a bit. She was prophesy. She was vengeance. She was salvation. She was more than the Lara Croft of old could ever aspire to be. And perhaps that was her new dilemma: All these changes were _bewildering_. Was she 'Qawalynn', daughter of Qawalapeque, the Gaian explorer; here to save the Earth from the Cooperative? Or was she 'Qawalynn', lover of Qawalapeque, the _god_; redeemer of the damned? There was a disjoint between what she could accept through logic and all these new things about herself that she could only accept through faith.

In the heat of fast action, she had felt no need to rationalize these things. Whatever had worked its way through her conscience and had transformed her from Lara Croft to Qawalynn had been thorough enough to leave no trace of itself behind. She could tell that much of her new identity arose from her new power to shrive her character of its most cynical elements, and to learn to embrace the irrational as an _exhilaration _rather than a _frustration_. She also discovered she possessed a new lens for viewing reality--one that made her exhilarating irrationality feel all the more logical and comforting: She was an alien.

She wasn't human at all. It meant that she didn't know even the least of herself. In effect, she was _herself _her own greatest frontier for further exploration. Limits toward which she had never dared approach in the past--human limits--were open courts for her now. What was she to learn next? Where was she to go next? She had a fire within her that ached to find new kindling to burn. She had a soul within her that was widening, broadening, yearning to encompass more things--_all_ things--and deeming no option impossible. She was reborn. She had broken fully from the old, and was ready to embrace the new. She had conquered her initiation, completed her trials, awakened to her new identity, and was now facing a fresh and utterly glorious new destiny. She stood on the threshold of a new day, with only one item left unresolved. It was an item that she might not have ever even considered, had it not walked through her door at that very moment, demanding to be recognized.

And refusing to be ignored.

"Lara Croft," its voice said.

Lara stood.

The muscular man had entered using the rope and the window.

"'Qawalynn', Kini," she regally corrected him.

He meandered through the chamber as though it were his own living room, orbiting Lara and the Interlocutor in their corner, but disregarding the fresh dead bodies, the blood, and the recently incapacitated sentry laying in his path. Kini wasn't charging her this time. He wasn't screaming at her, nor waving his blade about himself madly. He was lucid and calm. It was just between the two of them now and no one else--him and Lara Croft.

It was time to resolve things.

"Where is your boy to protect?" he asked.

"He's safe," Lara assured him.

Kini.

Lara had to admit it: She hadn't expected to see him again. Maybe she figured he was dead. Maybe she simply hadn't 'figured' at all. Somehow, though, his return made sense in a mystical way: She wanted to leave here reborn, and this man was more than just some link to her past: He was a bridge backward in time. The whole world would know her in time; but with Bean, and the Seer, and all of the others dead, this man was the only living being who understood her in her living present. Understood her as Lara Croft, and--perhaps--also as Qawalynn. In his eyes, she could see herself with perfect living clarity. He was as exciting as he was dangerous. He was powerful and determined. A terrific warrior.

Lara wasn't afraid of him, but she could appreciate his virtues for what they were. Whatever had been his foolish, misplaced alliances of his past, he was a kindred spirit. Like her, he had spent their day _becoming_. He had been on a great vision quest of his own, and she could respect and could honor him for it, now that she was alone with him with nothing more either to win from him, nor lose. He had not chosen his mission to prove her--to vindicate the sacrifice of his people in her path--and, still, he had honored his people valiantly. In his place, could she say she would have done anything differently? As an ally, he would be able and true. He was tenacious. He was courageous. He was honorable.

And as an Ingu, he would be sworn to her service.

"I am the victor of the day, Kini," she told him. "Your American masters are all dead. Soon I will leave this place and claim my destiny and my birthright. There is a place for you at my side."

"You still lay claim to that title, False One?" he asked. "Why? We are alone. There is no need to lie to me now."

"I never lied to you, Kini." she replied. "I never _knew _before. But now I _know_."

"I know that I am alone," Kini said. "My everyone is dead because of you."

"Kini," Lara pleaded, "Not_ because_ of me. I didn't kill any of them."

"What am I to do?" he asked.

"Join me, Kini."

"I cannot."

"Then I don't know what you should do," she said.

"Then how can you claim to be Qawalynn?"

And Lara didn't understand.

Except, she _did_ understand. She simply didn't _want _to.

"Kini," she pleaded, seeing him slowly drawing the knife. "You don't want to do this."

"Qawalynn is death, Lara Croft," he told her, drawing near. "If you want the title, complete the sacrifice."

Beyond the windows, Lara could hear a fresh panic building in the streets: Gunfire as always; but, now, screams as well.

"Kini, wait," she pleaded. "You must allow me to finish what I'm doing here. There's no time for this."

"Then act quickly," Kini said. "Act now!"

Whatever was happening out in the city was drawing nearer. She had to finish quickly.

She shook her head, returning her eyes to the Interlocutor's guts--trying to disregard him.

"I won't do this," she said.

"You will."

She ducked back behind the Interlocutor and tried to return to her work. She only had a few more connections to complete. She kneeled at the machine, burying her head in the open panel.

But Kini wouldn't be denied.

He wouldn't be ignored.

Her work flew from her hands as the heavy moonlander took the brunt of a round-kick and fell sideways on the floor. She was still on her knees when Kini stepped before her.

She couldn't quite look up to meet his eyes.

"Kini," she moaned, "I won't fight you."

"Qawalynn is death," he repeated. "Complete the sacrifice!"

Staring off to the side and at the floor, she shouted, "No!"

"Then, Deceiver," he hissed, "die!"

And his blade came up and down over her in a flash, he stabbing straight down at her with his hilt clenched in both fists.

She wasn't sure where the reflex came from--it certainly wasn't conscious.

She instantly caught his wrists, but she didn't stop there. She slid her nimble, petite, body between his legs, until she was fully behind him. He went tripping over himself in the another direction. When he regained his balance, he span back to face her; his knife still in hand. He was enraged beyond reason.

But this time Lara was at ready.

She was standing, her knife in hand.

She began to pace.

Circling him.

"What you ask, I cannot give you," she assured him. "There is no need for this. Join me instead!"

"Recant."

"I…" Lara stammered, faltering. "I _can't_ do that."

"Then don't."

And he charged--his blade becoming a furious, glittering whiplash of white-wall reflecting fury, striking at her like a viper, and whirling over and around her like a shard in a hurricane. She ducked and kicked and swung back, stopping arm with arm, or blade with blade. Sparks flew, fiery eyes burned, vengeance exploded, wrath found vent. Lara stabbed at his arm, hoping to disarm him; and she struck at his ribs with her hilt to deflate him; and she kicked at his legs to collapse him. She did _everything_ she could think of to not have to deal the death blow. But to no avail. Kini was quick, and violent, and resilient. She broke from him, and he lashed out at her again and again. His eager blade would taste no flesh, but its earnest handler found no reason to contain it, despite.

They disengaged--and fought again.

And disengaged and fought again.

This was a deadlocked battle. None could win.

Rather, none who would _choose_ to.

Kini broke from a flurry of attacks and stumbled back from her, winded.

She was tiring as well, but it was he who was exhausted.

"Kini," she pleaded again. "Stop this. Stop this now, and _join _me."

"Recant," he demanded, his heavy chest heaving.

Lara was flabbergasted. She shook her head, 'no'.

And he attacked her again, his blade flashing and stabbing and drawing no precious Lara blood.

This time, she threw him back; and he nearly tripped over his own exhausted, clumsy feet.

"Stop this, I command you!" she shouted.

"Fight me!" he screamed.

"You can't hurt me," she yelled. "This is pointless!"

"Fight me!" he raged back, spittle and blood spraying from his mouth. "_Fight_ me!"

"No!" she snapped.

"Then," he said, grinning a sly, bloody grin, "stand still."

She wasn't sure what he meant until his arm moved with a lightening quickness she would have thought him too exhausted to still possess. He snapped his arm and wrist her way like coach whip, and the knife shot toward her like a bullet--straight at her throat. Reflex alone put her out of its path. In equal parts shock and relief, she watched Kini's blade strike the wall behind her and shatter into a dozen harmless pieces.

Kini gaped incredulously, pathetically. He seemed as though he were about to break down into tears.

"Kini, can't you see that's a sign?"

"No!" the giant native bellowed; and, in abandon, he recklessly charged her.

Deftly, she awaited him. When he came close enough, she shot a single front kick to his chin, throwing him over backwards--rendering him just as unconscious as the sentry whose body she had knocked aside only minutes before he had arrived.

Saddened, she returned to her work and quickly finished.

* * *

Rainy had finished playing his Lara-game, and was basking in the eight monitors' worth of spoils: Images from throughout the city of Operations Force soldiers running madly for their lives while near-invincible giant spiders gobbled them up one by one. He was so caught up in his revelry that he hadn't noticed how sternly quiet his host had become behind him. Granted, the hologram hadn't been particularly desirous of conversation with him to begin with; but he should have noted this new sternness; this new and coarser cool.

"Rainy Blue-Sky Hedgebrook," the hologram finally said.

Rainy turned; and upon sight of him, his laughter evaporated.

The hologram continued:

"Things have changed. It's time to say goodbye."

* * *

Where there had been confusion, there was conviction.

Where there had been disillusion, there was certainty.

Where he once had only fear, Kini now had clarity.

He had found Lara Croft at the end of one of the ledges overlooking the vast white maw whose coursing vapors filled the city's sky. She was standing there, hesitating, her back to him while he emerged from the water-draining corridors and crawl-spaces. She had no idea he had caught up to her. She would have no time to react.

Lara Croft was _wrong_. Wrong about everything.

She had said that she truly believed she was Qawalynn--that she wasn't merely lying to make a fool of him. She was wrong! Maybe she truly believed her falseness herself. Maybe she was simply following the promptings of her heart. But her heart was wrong, too. It would only be in the exquisite agony of immolation that Truth could be burned from Lara Croft's falsehood. And only a death of the most righteous sort would do. Only the most perfect death could purify them to ascend to the highest heavens so that they might ask the highest gods to settle their differences. And this, _this _was the perfect place, and the perfect time.

It was what Lara Croft deserved.

And so did Kini.

* * *

The massive impact came from behind; and, as soon as she felt herself hurled from the lip of the aqueduct and into the white, misty space, she felt his two big, burly arms wrapping around her waist and doubling over themselves. Her first thought had been to scream, but she found there wasn't one within her. Not that she had been winded by his bear-tackle, but rather because such a scream would be pointless: She was going back to the repulsor field of her own UFO, where she would be delivered safely into her own stronghold of security and protection. So, instead of for herself, it was Kini for whom she feared: Feared he might foolishly release her waist and fall away. So she re-enforced his hold with a grip of her own, locking his wrists in place as best she could, holding him to her--knowing how he might react once he saw where they were going. And as she fell--for a very long time--she found herself smirking, smugly. Perhaps being a witness to _this _would turn her reluctant would-be compatriot around….

But her smug grin swiftly vanished: She struck the field, she but didn't pass through!

At first she thought she was doomed; that she and Kini both were going to be disintegrated in the massive churning power of the repulsor field and the thousands of gallons of water it churned through space all around them. Instead, though, she didn't explode upon impact. She was delivered safely after all. She was delivered safely around the orbit of the spacecraft, delivered safely between the metal hull and the tunnel's jagged rock wall; delivered safely around to the nadir below, where she could catch a startling glimpse of the ingenious technology the natives had engineered to turn the sizzling water vapor into hydraulic power. She was delivered safely to where she was then _dropped_--delivered into the massive white-water hell that drained from the caves, out and away, down, down, and down.

Into the cold, chortling, darkness that lay below and beyond.

But this betrayal would not be all: Though she was then shooting through a tight, black cave--drowning and stroking for her life--Lara would yet find her scream.

Because, moments later, the entire mountain-top exploded.


	30. Chapter Twenty Nine: Solutions

"_I have arrived_

_And this time you should believe the hype_

_I listened to everyone_

_And I know that everyone was right…_

"_I am everything _

_And just a little more_

_I sold my soul _

_Don't you dare call me a whore…_

"_Now I belong_

_I'm one of the chosen ones_

_Now I belong_

_I'm one of the beautiful ones…_

"_All our pain_

_How did you think we'd get by without you?_

_You're so vain_

_I'll bet you think this song is about you…_"

**--Nine Inch Nails (Wormhole Remix).**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:** **"**Solutions.**"**

Adib would _not_ be denied!

He led the formation with fire and fury and watched his appalling foes escaping--while he gritted his teeth and damned everyone if they didn't have everything yet in place.

In poor, murdered Sanchez's pirated Chinook, the traitors were faster and tougher than his gyro fleet. No one had intended the machineguns mounted on his gyros be used to engage reinforced armor such as that which was protecting his enemies' Project helicopter; and no one had thought to design the gyros' rocket systems to make them accurate in air-to-air combat. And yet, even though Adib's fliers were strafing and strafing their ignominious foe to seeming no avail, he himself remained determined that, in the end, the day would be his. He'd seen to it.

There were many ways to skin a putrid, repugnant cat. Even though they could outmaneuver him--fly higher and run faster than his gyro warriors--he knew that he, not the traitors, had the proverbial 'Ace in the Hole'. The Chinook, whatever its size and firepower, was running on conventional petroleum fuel and would soon exhaust its tanks. Adib's vengeful fleet, by contrast, would encounter no such handicap. They could fly virtually endlessly. They could afford to be patient. Soon, the Chinook would fall again into easy range. All Adib had to do was contain them and wait.

And containing them had been his chief problem--and his solution. Though there was only one direction offering escape from the Ingu Valley, toward the narrow pass that was like the open door of the cage otherwise formed by the valley and the mountains, the Chinook, with its superior speed, had bypassed, evaded, and had outrun the gyros trying to bar its path. The Chinook would believe it could vanish over the horizon of the valley edge and make its inglorious escape to the sea. But, in reality, it wouldn't get far: Once it entered that pass, it would find that Adib had arranged a nasty surprise.

They were going to learn how dangerous a gyro can really be. True, Adib's gyros' air-to-ground missiles had been performing quite poorly against them in flight; but their accuracy improved _vastly_ when fired from the _ground_. And there were a great many stretches of passage between the valley and the sea where the way was so narrow as to be virtually a _barrel_, wherein a well-placed missile firing-squad could engage them like the proverbial _duck_.

So…

Let them run.

Like _hell_ they'd get past.

Like _hell_.

* * *

Blakely saw Wiley, Blalock, and Pizo jumped and taken under by wolfish abominations, his nightmare spiders. Their eight-upon-seeming-_eight-thousand _legs, and their wagging, lusting, fangs were already stained and gory. The air rocked with machinegun fire, grenade blasts, cries for help and pleas for mercy, and the screams of the dying in their agonies. No one did anything for anyone else: None cooperated, none strategized, none stood his ground. Everyone, all around the pyramid-top city, was running and screaming, and screaming and dying. Each of them was stalked alone, fought alone, died alone. Ten thousand years of human civilization had been forgotten in a moment of screaming terror: It was every man for himself. All military training and discipline had left this platoon as though sanity itself had panicked and fled.

No one could have anticipated (no one could have dreamed of) such a horror! Yes! there had been reports of dangerous animals. Yes! Spaulding's team had also been decimated. But who could have imagined such a thing as these--as these--_creatures_? These hellish… _things!_ It was unfair! It was all so cosmically _unfair!_ Something had to be wrong! Loathsome and foul! There was no justice in a universe that let such things be! Where was Blakely's bright future? Where was his obvious and manifest destiny? How could it all just _disappear?_ Just _vaporize _as though by tyrannical decree? It wasn't supposed to end this way!

His men had scattered throughout the city--Blakely was alone.

He turned and stared into the ten-eyed black face of the last of the dozen or so beasts to pour around the corner behind him to trap him there in the street's dead end. Stopped dead by the wall, the cold marble palm of Destiny, he had spun to glare into it--into _their_--beady, ugly eyes. He defied them. He stood up straight, and he _defied _them. He defied all fate, all destiny. He defied the stars themselves! He defied death! He defied God! And he cursed them _all_. Cursed them! Damned them all to Hell! And he cut loose with every remaining way of murder, death, and destruction he had left: Every grenade, every blade, as many shots as would cycle--so that he could wreck his last revenge upon these agents of this hateful God and this hateful, traitorous world!

In his last curses, he screamed his loudest, and God indeed must have heard him:

Because he sent Hell up in reply.

* * *

_Run high! Run wild! Run fast!_

Morigushi's mind--and his hands, and his toggles, and his helicopter--were racing. Even with Doc and Cavanaugh at the guns, and his crew chief leaping to extinguish electrical fire after electrical fire, and doing everything otherwise imaginable to keep their desperate, airborne sanctuary aloft--by fluke, by luck, by prayer--he knew that it was only a matter of time (a very _brief _time) before attrition would ultimately declare its victory over them. The gyros' fleet's arsenal was meek, but it was plentiful. Gradually, progressively, it was doing its awful work to bring their Chinook down to its metaphorical knees.

It didn't matter that they were mostly clear now. Even high above the ground, and--_finally_--beyond their enemies' weapons' easy range, they were still taking the infrequent machinegun round. Morigushi had brought them clear of the worst of their enemies' wrath, but for all intents and purposes, stellargetic rounds have no terminating range. The Operations Force soldiers' impressive shooting skills were being taxed, but the damage was still coming, even if now less continuously. Mostly, their enemies' shots missed; but what was being done was still more than could be sustained.

And they had taken too much damage already.

"We're not going to make it!" Morigushi predicted, direly.

"Don't tell me that!" snarled Doc, his voice staccato with the violent rapport of the machinegun tucked into his shoulder--its barrel blazing down and out though the left-side gun port.

"We've come too far," added Cavanaugh, standing hesitantly in the cabin; himself having abandoned his right-side gun port and its weapon some moments earlier.

"We are losing fuel!" grunted Morigushi with pent-up terror.

"Just get us out of here!" Doc snapped. "Worry about the rest when--"

"Go where?" gasped back the exasperated pilot. "They've got Support in their pocket! Even if we _can_--"

But the crew chief interrupted--

"Jesus--God!"

Morigushi should have seen it before the crew chief had, but he had probably been too scared and too angry and too distracted to focus. Far forward and down the long and narrow mountain pass before him, he abruptly could see what his crew chief was panicking about. The black smudges lining the slopes of both mountainsides weren't the terrain features he had first thought they were. They weren't even terrain features! They were--

But the rockets started hitting them before he could finish the thought.

* * *

Lara felt it before she saw it.

Before she could see anything.

In the tunnel--the long, long tunnel--she had been feeling something peculiar seeming to slither about and permeate her flesh. It had been something more than the deadening cold of the iron-rich water washing her invisibly and unaccountably along. It was more than the dull weight in her lungs of the air that clung there as though refusing to leave her--as though afraid to go out where it would find no more like itself. It was not the slowed _boom, boom, boom_, of her pulse in her ears, its sound amplified by the darkness. It was not even the deadish feel of Kini's lifeless hand still clutched in hers. It was something more than all of these things. Something more foreboding. More impending. And infinitely more sinister. She could feel it _building_ around her. She could sense it in her nerves and in her muscles and within her throbbing skull. It built, and built, and built, until it reached something approaching a climax. But it wasn't until also the noon-day sunlight came washing over her and her skin began to shed the water's irony cold for the day's happy outdoor heat that she had any idea what it was.

She broke the surface of the racing stream and took her first breath in what must have been several minutes (certainly longer than she ever imagined she might be able to survive under water), and she waded in the unexpected shallows suddenly flowing around her. The cavern drainway had opened across a gently sloping, but extremely broad, cave mouth. The fat but fully flooded cave behind her had become a fast but shallow, strongly-tugging stream. She struggled to pull Kini's and her own bodies to the edge of the waist-high canal, resisting the tide that pushed them, inch by inch, toward the spill-over edge of a short waterfall, some meters farther downstream. She draped her arms beneath Kini's shoulders, clutching his clammy chest. She pulled him to the bank and dragged him atop the cool, moist rocks of the swallows. Once seemingly safe, she let herself wonder at the unthinkable thing climaxing silently in her heart and head. And she then _watched_ her climax--her explosion--_literally_. Because it happened not within her, but in the vast, outside world.

The entire mountain range exploded.

It was first a rumble from the mountain top, and then a roar, and then a solid shake; but then the whole ridge above her ripped apart at a burst, bringing down avalanches and turning everything up there topsy-turvy. Everything whipped into racing blurry streaks of indistinguishable vibration--as color was shaken from everything and replaced with blanched, barbaric, streaks of white and non-sense gray. Lara cried out a crushed, horrific whimper. The mountain top, far above her slope, gushed geologic gore. Lava and ash--from nowhere--shot out and went supra-orbital in a volcanic paroxysm. Mountains splashed into mountains, each devouring the others; sending massive bits up and away into the dust and smoke swiftly filling the skies. Incomprehensibly, the mountains _leveled _themselves, sinking in and belching out. The ridge became a jagged rim of fire.

And all that raw mountain--all that raw Hell--was rolling down her way.

Yet, even in the face of all this horror, Lara's screams weren't for herself:

"_RAINY!_"

* * *

The rockets came, and the rockets struck, and the rockets did the horrible things that rockets do--but it was only for a moment.

The ambush awaiting them in the pass would have been more than ample to finish them, Morigushi knew. It must have included every other gyro in Blakely's replacement force: Even the beachhead guardians would seem to have been among the firing squad. Virtually unlimited destruction would have within easy reach for them had they been allowed more than the fraction of a second the mountain-demons allowed them. It must have been the Devil himself who had come for them, and maybe he wanted them all--the Chinook, too--but, luckily, he took the gyros _first_.The ground beneath and all throughout the ambush site seemed to liquefy and splinter, sucking the gyros and their helpless pilots instantly beneath the abruptly formed plates of rock that the exploding magma had suddenly sent rolling out of place and all over everything. It stopped their rocket fire dead.

But, if this were indeed the Devil's hand, then it had to be the Devil's own fiery breath that came up next: A hellish power that would be unsatisfied with anything short of all of the ground, all of the rocks, all of the men--and every rivet of their flimsy, low-flying, metal bird. All of the air around them was turning into a fiery plume. The mountains themselves screamed in searing agony. The ground all around exploded into searing red, gurgling, surging heat, while smoke and ash came ripping up from everywhere--and the Devil's red, bloody hands seemed to come up to clutch at whatever mistakenly thought itself somehow safe in the air above Hell.

There were no words to speak--almost no air to breathe. What was left of their helicopter and its motor and its crew (and of their sanity) was poured into what should have been a futile bid for an extra second of life. But then a minor miracle intervened for them: A miracle of geology. They fell away from the eruption and from the smoke and the fire, and they spiraled violently down; held aloft--barely--by the lift of rotors that were spinning mostly by inertia. The engine had choked nearly to death on smoke and unburnable fumes. But, instead of plunging into the mountains spongy molten flesh, they somehow ended up beyond the next bend in the pass, and within a space of air that had not, as then, been consumed. That pass deflected the hell coming for them; and, for the moment, the eruption remained confined to the Ingu Valley they had just, miraculously, left behind. But this reprieve would be brief. Destruction was following closely behind.

_Flowing _after them.

The helicopter couldn't last long. It was choking and tottering and barely holding itself aloft. But, whatever was left in its stout little heart, Morigushi demanded from it. He poured his soul into his controls, and implored the machine to pour in its own--and the machine went racing past the valley threshold and down into the bends of the pass, its engine gasping and stuttering and making the cabin lurch one way and another. It almost seemed to _stumble_ on its awkward dash down-hill, as though it had human legs that were failing beneath it.

Meanwhile, the three passengers--with nothing else to distract them--were gazing back through the rear-most portals: Watching the smear of smoldering red and gurgling black and white while it quickly extended its horrible reach right and left over the horizons of their view; filling the portal window up and down and gradually taking over everything that once was mountains behind them. It was anyone's guess who would win this race to seaside, machine or nature. The infernal tidal wave would most certainly overcome them if they were to hazard to slow, or dare to stop.

Yet, that was exactly what they were about to do.

"What the fuck…?" whispered Morigushi.

"What?" asked Doc, sliding into the pilot's cabin beside him.

And then, suddenly, he saw it too

Saw _her_.

The helicopter was running only a dozen or so meters above the ground, parallel to a rocky stream bed where, despite credulity, there was the small shape of Lara Croft; standing above the shattered body of a fallen Operations Force soldier. She stood boldly before them, not afraid of their guns nor their wrath. It almost made Morigushi want to scream--but Doc deflated him with words in an oddly spoken tone. Instead of anger, his voice implied _hope_.

"Jesus," Doc murmured, adding excitedly: "That's it, man…Land! Land! Get down there!"

"What?" gasped Morigushi, "there's no time! What are you trying to--?"

By then, Cavanaugh had also joined them in the cockpit. He sided instantly with sanity; sided instantly with Morigushi:

"What are you saying?" Cavanaugh demanded, "we're gonna' die!"

"No, no!" said Doc excitedly. "Man, she's _Croft!_"

And suddenly it dawned on them as well: Yes, she was their enemy; but they had aligned themselves against Corbin, who now ruled over _everything _in the Croft empire, including all Project resources. On the outside of that loop, the four of them had nothing but this tottering helicopter--in nearly its final moments of function. They were resourceless and alone. If they could even get to the sea, they would crash there and die.

Lara Croft, on the other hand, while also an enemy of Corbin, was still a _Croft_: No matter what changes may have swept through politics or policy, she was David Croft's _heir_. Only Corbin's Operations Force had been ordered against her; otherwise, the entire Croft global paramilitary network would bow knee to her and obey! This was why Corbin wanted that she never leave the Ingu Valley alive! It made for the bitterest of ironies, but their worst foe had just become their only hope! At this point, she was the only one among them who had any realistic chance of leaving Peru alive. If they saved her, she might bring them out with her! Doc had hit upon it! There was hope! Morigushi brought the helicopter into a hover while Doc leaped to the ground and pulled the young woman and her listless burden aboard.

"Go! Go! Go!" the commanding, pretty little thing shouted--before she was even fully aboard the plane.

Morigushi made no qualms. He was shooting up, with whatever force his engine had left, the instant her voice lent his hands their leave. In seconds they were high above the ground--and it wasn't a second too soon. Destruction appeared swiftly beneath them, leaving the stream bed a churning cauldron of bubbling lava and splintering earth. The heat alone caught them in its seeming snare, its awful power taking their breath away--and seeming to _restore _breath to one of them. As the helicopter sluggishly lurched back into what little duty it had left, the equally sluggish Kini, apparently roused by the heat, also stirred and climbed to his knees.

"Kini," said Cavanaugh, only that moment realizing who the mystery soldier was.

No one was sure at that moment what to say next. No deal had been struck with Lara Croft yet, and the last time anyone had dealt with Kini, it was across the blade of his knife. Enemies all, they stood before each other, each regarding the others' faces, while a red, swirling, menacing blanket continued to expand beneath them. Soon the entire mountain range was a bloody-red swath of hell across the region, and the helicopter was still going up--straight up--to escape the heat; reserving its forward motion for an altitude where the pilot's instruments weren't steadily _melting_.

Kini was standing, and Lara Croft was facing him, and the two stared for some remarkably long seconds into one-another's eyes. And then, as though the _lack _of words were much a form of communication as words themselves, Kini responded. The soldiers could only stand back to watch while a most curious--and perhaps momentous--event transpired before them. It may have been that, perhaps once or twice, Lara had tried to speak; but no words left her lips. Her eyes spoke for her. They were longing, lamenting; and yet somehow properly steeled against the next moment. She seemed to know what was coming, and that what was coming _had_ _to be_. This had to be case, because, when Kini did what he did next, she didn't even budge in surprise.

He stood at the door of the helicopter, high above their view of the desolated world all around.

He said, "Now, the sacrifice is complete."

And his body fell over backward--out into the empty air!

Cavanaugh and Doc scrambled to the edge incredulously as he went--reflexively trying to catch him, thinking he must be slipping; thinking it must be some kind of mistake--some kind of accident! But only Lara Croft could have saved him--only she was close enough--and she hardly budged an inch, even when the two of them had nearly pushed her out after him trying to get past her to his aid.

The three watched--the two in horror, and the one in quiet contemplation--while Kini's body vanished into the fuming red scar that was once his beloved homeland. They watched while his flesh vanished from sight in the undulating heat long before it could have struck home. He had incinerated, utterly, in air.

After that, none of the soldiers knew what to say. If the moment before had been awkward, this moment was _unbearable_. They realized they were clenching their MP5 machineguns unconsciously, slowly converging their gazes upon the lethal young creature standing among them. They were expecting…

Well, they didn't know _what _to expect. But it certainly wasn't what she said:

"Take me home," she commanded, flatly. "My birthday party's tonight. And I have a promise to keep."


	31. Chapter Thirty: Apotheosis

"_Waiting_

_At the calm of desolation_

_Waiting to break from this circle of confusion…_

"_It challenges the essence of my soul_

_And leaves in a state of disconnection_

_As I mitigate the maze of self-control…_

"_Playing a lion led to a cage_

_I turn from a thief to a beggar_

_I turn from surreal to seclusion_

_From love to distain_

_From a god to a God save me!_

"_How can I feel abandoned_

_Even when the world surrounds me?_

_How can I bite the hand that feeds_

_The strangers all around me?_

_How can I know so many_

_Never really knowing anyone?_

_If I seem superhuman_

_I have been misunderstood_."

**--Dream Theater.**

**CHAPTER THIRTY:** **"**Apotheosis.**"**

"_Lara Croft, ladies and gentlemen, Lara Croft!_"

Bean was the announcer at this meet's closing ceremonies.

His usually rough and disheveled hair had been smoothed, conditioned, pulled back, and tied behind his head; giving him an elegant, distinguished look that Lara felt flattered him greatly. An elegant three-piece suit adorned him properly, and his smile and his dignity and his charisma also suited his station. Here, he was a personage of high esteem and great honor. Yet, though she could not think why, it felt very strange to see him this way, despite how greatly it pleased her. Indeed, it seemed strange to see Bean in _any_ way --after all, he was dead. But it didn't matter since this was only a dream. She smiled and she bowed to him; and she lavished in the adulation of the crowd arrayed before her.

"_Yes!_" exclaimed Bean again, excitedly. "_Lara Croft! Ladies and gentlemen, Lara Croft!_"

This was a strange dream, indeed. The auditorium was full of fans and well-wishers and happily entertained adventure-watchers--which was normal enough--but, it was a strange crowd never the less. They weren't dressed in anything like the usual society finery. No, this crowd was adorned in all of the best in home-spun scraps and hand-cut leather loin cloths. Their dirty hair was styled in all the season's best tangles, pinned with designer bird-bones and custom feathers. Their faces were decorated with what was the latest rage in war-paint, impeccably embellished with all the perennial skin etchings and scars. They certainly weren't the usual London crowd, that was for sure. No, they were definitely _different_. For one, they were dead.

Now, they weren't dead in some twisted scary way; but she could tell by looking at them that they weren't at this meet to be amused by her abilities and performance. They had come as emissaries from the Other Side. They were cheering for her and they loved her, but they were there to do more than merely adore her.

They were there to _judge_ her.

"_Lara Croft, ladies and gentlemen_," continued Bean, her announcer/advocate, his voice amplified via microphone and speakers, "_the woman who lands jet planes on mountainsides! Who rides rafts over rapids and waterfalls! Who slays dragons and giant spiders! The Pied Sniper of Procompsygnathes!_"

And the people--_her_ people--were far more than willing to accede his accolades. They cheered and stood and smiled. Even while Lara stepped out from the side of the stage and entered its center circle, she felt their love and devotion and confidence and faith in her. It all came flooding over her like a wash of soothing vapor; cleansing, coddling, and blinding her all at once and in delightful proportions. She could _weep_ for her joy. Her father--her _real_ father--was also there, off-center of the circle of light, where Great Rewards are bestowed. In his hands was a sparkling tiara. It was for her. Her anointment.

Her Prize.

"_Ladies and gentlemen_," Bean explained, "_this is the moment we have all been waiting for. Here we have our champion, our hero. She has discovered herself, overcome every obstacle, and has proven herself worthy of the tasks before her. In her we place all our hopes and our love and our faith. We give her every power, every right, to go out into the world and do what she has to. With this Prize, we will give her our blessing, and with our blessings, she can do no wrong_."

She stepped into the light and stood before her father, gazing up at him for a long and loving moment. She wanted to look into his eyes, dilated as they were with pride in her, and she wanted to bathe herself in his love and warmth. She wanted to share all of her triumphs and adventures, and beseech his personal blessing for her accomplishments.

But the crowd was inexorable. Their roaring cacophony drowned all other sounds, filling even the warm, close space between them. Lara could say nothing, and her father could say nothing back. But their love, at least, passed between them unimpeded. Lara forgot all wrong and all ill in the joy in his eyes. She wanted to remain there in that moment for all eternity. But for him to place the tiara upon her head, and for her to accept her Prize, she would have to turn her back to him and face the crowds instead.

She turned and saw the crowds, awaiting her coronation. Anticipating. Approving. This was her moment. A moment of true victory! Finally, of true meaning! This was what it meant for Lara Croft to be alive, this was why she had been born: For _this _ceremony, for _this_ moment. She could see the crowds before her, applauding; the judges in their box before the stage, nodding at her with sober dignity. She could even see the vague silhouettes of her conquered rivals, off to the sides of the stage; cowed, muted, and vanquished.

In fact, in all of the auditorium there was only one face that didn't seem approving.

It was a face, in fact, that Lara couldn't read at all.

It was that of her grandfather; and it watched the proceedings imperiously from high above in a VIP private balcony overlooking the stage. She could have read any number of meanings into the old man's cool stare: Anger? Boredom? Disapproval? His cool, dispassionate, surveillance over her ceremony subtly chiseled at the foundations of Lara's joy. What if he really _didn't_ approve? And it suddenly struck Lara that perhaps he, of all of them, was the one person, really, whose approval genuinely _mattered_.

Might he be, ultimately, the highest presiding authority here?

Perhaps. Perhaps.

"_The moment we've all been waiting for, ladies and gentlemen!_" Bean said, ecstatically, "_Lara Croft, ladies and gentlemen! This is our Qawalynn! Who is more beautiful? Who is more brilliant? Where in the world--in the universe--could we find anyone stronger? Wiser? More graceful? Isn't she perfect, ladies and gentlemen? How like an angel! How like a god--!_"

But suddenly everyone's attention began to shift from the stage to the judges' box.

A commotion in the crowd was rippling from one side of the vast auditorium to the other. Everyone was straining to get a look at a lone Ingu boy, his chest still smeared red and wet, who had barged in to serve the judges a handwritten note. The boy then quickly disappeared the way he had come, but the crowd's low disapproving rumble continued while the judges took council. They conferred in heated whispers, finger-points, and gestures, until, finally, it became clear that the tiara, still hovering in Lara's father's hands just above her waiting brow, could not yet be bestowed--at least, not unanimously. Soon Bean was touching the tiny speaker hidden in his ear. He nodded as he listened to the words it privately said to him. He looked up toward the VIP box and nodded at her grandfather's still stoic, and yet, somehow, communicative gaze. Bean then sighed; which told the crowds, and Lara, just what they all had hoped not to hear.

"_I'm sorry_," said Bean to everyone, "_We may have to postpone the coronation! Wait a minute-! Wait a minute-!_"

And then, just as the crowd seemed ready to burst for the suspense, Bean revealed what was going on.

"..._It's been approved, then?_" Bean asked of some anonymous other, eagerly nodding to the private reply he received. "_Petitions?_ _Approved? Then they are approved?_ _Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it seems there is indeed a problem. A couple of the other contestants aren't satisfied with the judgments against them._"

The crowd groaned in annoyance.

"_They don't think Lara deserves the Prize!_"

The groans graduated to 'boo's.

"_Well, well, wait now_," Bean explained. "_That's their right! They made a petition, and its been granted. The judges will hear their cases, one at a time._"

But the crowd shouted back angrily, obstructing. They said, 'cheat', and 'liars', and 'fraud' and a number of other vehement imprecations. For Lara's own part, she remained quiet. She was unable to but gaze in astonishment at her supporters' show of devotion and blind loyalty. She herself expressionlessly and emotionlessly submitted to this continuation of her trials, wanting neither to taint the judges against her in some pretentious show of vanity, nor dampen the gratifying zeal of her followers.

And it was their zeal that was most strange. It comforted her; and yet, paradoxically, it made her anxious. She asked herself why should she feel anxious; but, in fact, she already knew. All of these people, from Uncle Jake and Grandfather and Christine Palaos--the population of her childhood--to Bean and the Ingu of her present: They had all made her _too_ perfect. _Too_ like a god. She had anxiety for a very good reason. She knew better. Even then, even while her father was withdrawing what had almost been her tiara from its ready-place above her head, Lara realized that the zeal of the crowds alone had been what had bolstered her confidence enough to finish her trials in the first place. From the first battle in the clearing to the final bout with Kini in the throne room. Deep inside herself, she knew, Lara Croft was nothing worth putting a crown upon.

Everyone in the dream watched while, away from Lara's great, warm, circle of light, a smaller circle of light appeared. Within it was Jacob Corbin, the man who had betrayed and had twice attempted to murder her. He was wearing a torn, dirty suit (Italian-made, of course) that still looked slick in the stage-light, despite its damage. His eyes were urgent and angry, but also icy and cock-sure. His words would be practiced and exact--presuming the crowds would stop heckling him long enough to let him say them.

"_Calm, ladies and gentlemen, calm!_" insisted Bean, and the mob finally quieted enough to hear.

"Look at her!" shouted Corbin, pointing at Lara without really looking at her himself. "She's just a _girl_. An incredibly _stupid_ girl. What do you people think you are doing? The power to do no wrong? Infallibility? You're giving _that_ to _her_? All that power? And then what? What is she going to do? Save the world? _Please_. She wouldn't even know what that means! You can't give the Prize to a stupid little girl!"

But the crowd disagreed. They heckled and growled and threatened at any moment to charge the stage. His words, his manner, everything about him was offensive and provocative. They wanted to rip him apart, limb from limb. It didn't much matter what he said, so long as he stood there so contemptuously before them. It was only Bean's exemplary calm that kept them at peace.

"No, hear me out!" insisted Corbin. "Listen to me! You people don't know what you're doing! She's going to mess everything up! You're nothing but the mob, and she's just a pretty little ornament to put up in front! Sure, she can do a lot of really impressive things--she can think and fight and shoot--but that just makes her a worthwhile _tool!_ You're giving her the right to grind a thousand years of social evolution under her heels, and she's nothing but a poor little rich girl without a single idea of her own! She doesn't have a Plan! She doesn't have a Vision! If she wins here, if you let her beat me, and she gets that Prize...if you let her win, she will come after me and she'll mess up everything! I've got a brilliant Plan! She's got nothing! I'm a million people with a Vision, and she's just a dumb girl! You can't give her the right to do this to me! You just _can't!_"

Suddenly, it seemed, he was finished speaking--and the crowd's heckles diminished to mere mumblings. They wanted to keep heckling him, but it was futile. He was imperturbable in his demanding silence.

"_Good point_," said Bean from the sidelines, echoing the crowd's begrudging sentiment. "_Judges?_"

Judge Kini stood; his strong, proud features certain and bold against the contestant and the crowd. He spoke with conviction:

"You talk about a 'vision'. You talk about 'plans'," he said. "But you do not have a vision. What you call a 'vision' is just you wanting to make the world go _your_ way. You don't care about the people. You don't care about anyone. Maybe she does not have a plan, but she cares about the people, and she cares about the world. She _cares_. That's more than you can say. It is enough. We judge against you. Sit down."

The crowd cheered in approval, and Corbin exited the way he had entered, his head bowed.

"_Well_," said Bean, smirking derisively and watching Corbin leave. "_I guess that's final_."

The crowd chuckled with him, politely.

"_Next petition, please?_" Bean asked, returning to the sidelines.

The next contestant was Colonel Spaulding, unruffled as always, his hands in his pockets. He walked out and spoke to the thousands as though it were to any one good friend over a cup of coffee. Whatever he was preparing to say, it was clear the he himself believed in it, unequivocally--and he didn't care if anyone would agree with him or not. He shrugged and flatly made his case:

"She doesn't have the will to use that Prize you're giving her. She'll crack under the pressure. She's too weak. She'll start the fight, but she won't see any of it through."

Bean had to smile.

"_She beat you_," he said.

"True," he conceded, unpocketing a hand in order to gesture with a finger. "But only because I wasn't a unified opponent. If I'd been better people--if I'd been better _committed_ people--she wouldn't have had a chance. Look at me: I can kill hundreds of people just to prove a point. Where's _her_ resolve? Do you really expect her to be able to handle that kind of responsibility? For all the lives of the world? Hell, even for her own? Think about it a moment. Does she really have the will to beat a monster like me if she runs into one? I'm out there, waiting for her. You know that, and I know that. What if she can't beat me without becoming a monster herself? Do you really think she can do _that_? Be fair."

The crowd milled uncomfortably, whispering in private discussions on the topic. One thing was certain, whether or not the judges had an answer for him, he had certainly sparked heated pockets of debate. He rested his case, returning both hands to his pockets. He bounced on his heels, rocking patiently in place, and he gaily whistled to himself while the crowd and the judges debated his petition and its obviously unpleasant implications.

Finally, Judges Doc and Cavanaugh stood.

The sideline chatter ceased, and Doc began:

"Where does it say you gotta be a monster to beat a monster?" he asked.

"Please," replied Spaulding condescendingly. "How else would you do it?"

"By fighting bravely," proposed Cavanaugh. "By getting all of the good people on _her_ side."

Doc continued, "By proving once and for all who the _real_ fucking monster is. That it's _you_, not her."

"'Proving'?" scoffed Spaulding. "Proving what? Who gives a fuck about proof? Did Hitler need proof to kill off six million Jews? Did I need proof to wipe out all you people? A monster doesn't need proof. What the fuck is proof?"

But Doc scoffed right back: "The difference between a monster and a loud mouth."

"You talk about being a monster," Cavanaugh explained, "about killing six million people and whatever else. But who _actually_ killed those people? Did you? No. Not you yourself. You may have given the orders, but _other people_ actually did it _for_ you."

"So what?" said Spaulding. "What's the difference?"

"What if they won't listen to you anymore?" Cavanaugh said. "What if she can make them see that there are better ways?"

Spaulding grunted, "Yeah. And Santa Claus will hear they've all been really good and he'll bring them nicer toys next Christmas. _Please_…."

Doc said, "You laugh about it, but you know damn well its not about what rank's on a collar or what the government has to say. It's all about if you believe the guy can make a difference. Yeah, you're right; Hitler made a difference, and a lot of people followed his crazy ass. But when _you_ stopped making a difference, _we_ said 'fuck you'. Maybe the world will do the same for her."

"You can't compare yourself to Hitler," Cavanaugh said, "much less this girl to Hitler. Hitler and other leaders like him were super-powerful maniacs. There's never been anyone like them with that much power and confidence who _was_ sane. If we give her the Prize, she will be the first. She won't have to be a monster to get respect, she'll be respected anyway. She'll command respect. People will follow. Even her enemies, in time."

"Yeah," added Doc. "Fuck being a monster."

By then, Spaulding was nodding, seeing their point. He didn't necessarily agree, but he could see that would be futile to belabor such a profoundly hypothetical question.

"We'll see," Spaulding said.

Bean returned to the stage, addressing its contestant directly.

"_Is that all you have to say?_" Bean asked him.

"For now," Spaulding replied.

"_Then_," asked Bean toward the judges' box, "_judgment?_"

Doc was absolute: "Fuck that motherfucker."

Cavanaugh was less so: "We judge against him. For now."

"_Fair enough_," said Bean with a sigh, turning toward the shadowy sidelines of the stage while Spaulding disappeared there and another figure emerged. "_Who's next?_"

"I am."

And Bean's expression--already strained from enduring Spaulding--dropped utterly at the sight of who was then appearing. It was a little boy. A little Navajo boy whom Bean had known better than to make involved in his nightmare war. A little boy who was too young to be dead. His own nephew. The pain of the betrayal between them ran deep. Bean couldn't long regard him without looking down at the floor instead. And Rainy stared at him, and at Lara, and at the crowd--at _everyone_. Rainy was angry. Rainy was _furious_.

And he had a right to be.

"_You have a petition to make?_" asked Bean, cautiously.

"You're goddamned right!" the little boy shouted.

"_Then make it_," Bean said.

But Rainy was already beyond paying attention to Bean. Bean was just the gatekeeper. The one standing between him and the real object of his anger: the one who stood at center-stage, consuming all of that adoring light. Oh, how Rainy deplored the fact that such a glorious light should be defiled to encompass such a one as _her_. He prowled the outskirts of her circle, circumambulating, spiraling slowly--as though closing in for the kill. His eyes locked on Lara's shamed face--a face which evaded his and kept staring at the floor.

"Ha!" Rainy snapped. "You want to give this dumb bitch the Prize?"

Bean swayed uncomfortably in place. He said, "_I thought you had a--_"

"Fuck you Grampa, I'm dead!" Rainy snapped.

"_Rainy Blue-sky--_" Bean tried to scold, but his tone was deflated and harmless. Rainy promptly overwhelmed him with a shout:

"_FUCK YOU!_"

The auditorium, at the echo, fell to a crisp, dead silence.

After that, no one moved. If anyone dared even breathe, it was at their peril.

No one dared presume stand between this boy and his wrath.

_No one_.

"I'm dead because of _her_," Rainy hissed.

"_Come on_," Bean stammered, "_is that really fair? she--_"

"She promised me!" Rainy shouted; pointing, pointing. "She promised she'd protect me! Great job, bitch."

"_Rainy_," whispered Bean, deeply apologetically, "_your petition..?_"

"Alright," sneered Rainy, standing straighter, clearing his throat proudly. "You want a reason? I'll give you a reason. All those other people were just beating around the fucking bush. I was there, I saw the first lights sparking in her eyes. I came here 'cause I want to know what you people think you're doing. What business do you people think you've got in making that dumb bitch into a god?"

"_A god!_" protested Bean, trying to form a counter-argument, but finding no words available to him.

"That's what you're not saying, isn't it?" Rainy said. "You're trying to tell her she's got the right to say what she wants, to do what she wants, to just trust her bleeding fucking heart and do whatever she feels like, right? And let all those other people who are gonna tell her she's wrong…well, they can just _blow_. Right? I'm right, aren't I?"

No one answered; so, perhaps, indeed, it _was_ true.

"Well that makes her a fucking god, doesn't it?" Rainy snapped. "With all the stuff she can do, it's not going to stay just talk for long. She's going to go out there and start some shit. Some Lara-Croft-name-brand-revolutionary-change-the-world-total-_bull_shit. I know it's coming, you know it's coming. You give her that Prize, and you're telling her she can do that. That she's got the right! Who else gets to go out and do that? It's a real short fucking list! Let's see, that'd be Genghis Khan, Alexander the fucking Great, the Prophet Mohammed, oh! And Adolph Hitler, of course! Did we mention him already? Am I getting warm? Stop me when you got something _different_ you can tell me."

"_Okay, Rainy_," said Bean. "_You've made your point_."

"I haven't even started my fucking point!" Rainy shrieked. "A god's got to be perfect. She can't make any stupid mistakes. But that one--your grade-A-fucking-Lara-fucking-Croft--she fucked up left and right, every single time. I know it, I saw it, I was there! She got me killed; and she promised me she wouldn't do that. You can't have a god that makes those kinds of mistakes! So go ahead, put a crown down on her blond, brainless skull. Call her Qawa-la-la-la or whatever the fuck you want to. Go ahead! But don't say I didn't warn you."

And he frowned, and he sneered, and he regarded the entire audience with contempt. The audience, the judges, Bean, the other contestants, and especially Lara herself. He regarded them all with contempt, derision, and utter hatred. He, in his seething silence, dared anyone--_anyone_--to speak. Who had the temerity? Who had the _gall_?

"_Does anyone…want…to answer…his…uh…_" Bean murmured.

It was only after a awkward moment of hesitation that Judge Uncle Jake finally mustered the courage to stand. He wouldn't be standing long.

"Look, Rainy," he pleaded, "I spent a lot of time with Lara, and I'm telling you--"

"FUCK YOU, TOO!" roared the little boy. His voice, like thunder, shook even the ground beneath their feet.

Uncle Jake, shaken and humbled, slowly sat back down--and was unable to meet the boy's eyes again.

Rainy looked around, waiting. The crowd was silent. Their eyes had fallen to their laps, or to the floor before them. No one could answer his challenge. No one could look into his hatred-ridden face and tell him differently. He glared at them all, watching for any who dared look back; and his countenance, like a machinegun, battered every conscience dead, one after another.

Finally, Lara realized, she would have to speak for herself.

She tried. Earnestly, she tried.

"Rainy," she whispered, "please..?"

"_AND FUCK YOU MOST OF ALL!_" he bellowed, and he stormed from the stage, leaving the auditorium in stunned silence in his wake. Even after he was long gone, Lara still couldn't raise her eyes from the floor.

Not even Bean's encouraging voice could remedy her.

"_That was…_" Bean said, hesitating, searching for a better word and failing to find one, "_something_."

It was supposed to generate a laugh, or at least a sigh of relief--anything to break the tension--but it failed utterly. The auditorium remained in a state of despondent, disillusioned, silence. The depression threatened to last eternally; or at least until someone managed to break its gloom with the light of something new. And then, a moment later, a voice chirped in Bean's ear that finally changed the mood. It made it worse.

"_There's another one?_" Bean asked of the speaker in his ear. "_Who?_"

And he looked around--as the crowd did--seeing no one.

Finally, impatiently, Bean demanded of the darkness, "_Come on out, if you're gonna_."

But the stage remained quiet and empty; occupied by tension and nothing else for long seconds.

"_Who's there?_" Bean demanded. "_I said, come out!_"

And the crowd stirred uncomfortably.

And Lara's shoulders fell even further. She veritably wilting beneath the light she was under.

And out from the shadows behind her came a strange little girl.

Even had she been an adult, she would have been wearing far too much makeup; and she was dressed in clothes too mature--too _provocative_--for her apparently tender years. Her hair was a mess. Her face was dirty from too many nights spent in too many untidy places. Her cheeks were sunken, and her eyes were cold and keen; not glancing, but _skittering,_ over everything around her. She was in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight, ever watchful: For danger; or for the next potential _fix_. This ghastly adolescent drug-addicted woman-child stepped out onto the stage with hesitant, self-deprecating baby-steps; oppressed and horrified by all of the light, all of the eyes, and all of the direct attention that was suddenly being thrust upon her. Her arms, as though on their own, had crossed her comparatively flat chest to comfort herself against the cold loneliness of the open light revealing her to everyone.

At the same time as the contestant entered, the other woman on the stage had also begun to cower. Lara recognized this contestant, though no one else did; and she made herself blind and deaf to her, though no one else was. The two were strangely similar in face, and were exactly alike in hair color. The two even had a strikingly similar way of retreating into themselves, with their arms across their chests, when unbearably uncomfortable. All this, and yet Lara denied. Lara inwardly insisted: No, the little girl's voice was _not_ familiar. Her dress, too, was not familiar (though in reality she knew precisely which closet it was hanging in, in the London house). And the hunger in her eyes? No. And that particularly troubling and bizarre craving in her slender arms--no! Nothing. Nothing about her was familiar at all. But, despite her denial, Lara, uncontrollably, had begun to sob.

The little contestant began her attack.

"He's right," the little girl said with a hiccup, referring to Rainy but staring always at Lara. "She's no god."

And then, to make her point, the little girl followed Rainy's example, prowling about the outskirts of Lara's light. Only, instead of a predatory presence, her gait revealed her a forlorn, neglected spirit. Like one who had been left behind and forgotten. Like one who had been rejected, cast out, and abandoned to suffer the cold outside. Like someone drawn to the light, and who longed endlessly for its warmth, but who _deserved_ her cold and her pain. Like someone too ashamed to ever dare assert herself, even for her own survival. It took every ounce of this little girl's courage to make her stand in the open before all of these people. To make her force herself upon their stage and demand they acknowledge her existence.

"I remember _her_," the little girl hissed. "The _real_ her. I put needles in her arm. I helped her pick out the perfect razor blade for the just-in-case."

Lara still couldn't raise her eyes. She tried, but she just _couldn't_.

The little girl crossed in front of her, and turned to the audience to proclaim:

"Hah! She's no god! No god at all."

And then slowly, only slowly--incredulously--Judge Christine Palaos stood.

Lara, even though her eyes were blurred with tears, even though she was staring at the floor--even though her eyes were _closed_--could sense how Christine trembled with the effort to stand there and judge. Christine's high regard--her _blind faith_ in her all-perfect friend--was being shaken to the core. Christine's tears were held only barely suppressed behind her professional (however pathetic) façade of calm. In truth, she was mortified. This revelation couldn't be true. It was simply _impossible_.

"Lara?" Christine asked directly. "Is it...? Lara? Can that...be...you?"

But Lara couldn't answer. She was dabbling in places where her psychology wasn't supposed to tread. The honor of her family name trembled within her, demanding obedience. It snarled at her:

_Retreat from this place! Where are your loyalties? Who do you think you are to come to this place and dare revisit these times? Was it not enough that you did all of these disgraceful things? Need you now also drag your entire family down with you into the fire? Who tracked you down and detoxified you in that top-secret, extremely expensive first-class hospital? Who had made it so that all of your crimes and messes and horrible mistakes disappeared so that you could return from your 'year abroad' with so little as a hang-over to condemn you? Hate yourself, surely; but don't you dare taint the honor of the family name! Would you destroy an entire generation of highly-placed aristocrats for your scandal? For your pathetic scandal? How dare you! No, you will not speak of that year! No, you will not think of that year! You will remember nothing! When you were thirteen years old, there was no such thing as Lara Croft. None of that was real. You did not exist…._

So, little girl on the stage, who everyone could see--who was _undeniably_ real--did not exist.

_Don't look at her. Don't see her._

Lara was paralyzed.

But,

"Needles?" Christine pleaded, black with incredulity. "How could-? How-? You couldn't have."

And her tiny, terrible, insatiably vengeful alter-ego lept to the assault.

"So," the little girl said, addressing Lara directly. "Seeing the truth at last, are we?"

The little girl was a terrifying abomination.

"Why don't we have them put that crown on _my_ head?" the little girl sneered. "I'm the one who's closer to who you _really_ are."

"No!" Lara wailed, seeing it all clearly now, and feeling her entire future slipping away in a slovenly haze.

"Lara?" asked Christine, utterly confused. "What are you saying?"

"Junk goddess! Whore goddess!" the little girl shrieked; a shrill echo that veritably _ignited_ the auditorium with its flame. "Goddess of the gutter!"

"What is she talking about?" wailed Christine, the near-despondent former Lara-worshipper.

"Who's going to know?" sang the little girl, touching her own belly, "thirteen? eighteen? who's going to know?"

"Lara!" shouted Christine. "Tell me! Talk to me! Tell us the truth!"

"Let's go back to Amsterdam, Lara!" the little girl proposed. "No, even better! I know! Let's go back to _Bangkok_! You remember Bangkok, don't you Lara? _Don't you, Lara?_ You can--you didn't forget it all. Remember!"

By now, the crowd had joined Christine; demanding an explanation or an admission. Their shouts and taunts hounded Lara to the brink of humiliating confession. She could only keep it all suppressed for so long with them prodding and poking and demanding and asking, asking, asking! But she couldn't let it come up! She couldn't let it come out! If it did...if it _did_...

"Use up a place? Hop a plane, catch a boat!" continued the little beast, circling closer and closer, more tightly around her. "Never run out of money! Oh, nooooo--always a _source_."

This was a monster that could not be endured. Lara's sanity teetered.

Even now, even in the full sight of the truth, all it would have taken was a _word_ from Lara, the slightest denial, and Christine would never mention it--nor even _think_ of it--again. But Lara was caught between consequences, neither able to move forward nor capable of arguing her way clear. The very _not_ thinking of it burned her with the urge to run away screaming. She couldn't raise her eyes to Christine's. She couldn't raise her eyes to the crowd's (who she knew could no longer adore her anymore--not after this!). And she felt herself shrinking into the netherworld where that little girl lived, where that little girl thrived, in all of her sullied imperfections and frailty. It was a place that Lara despised, and a place that Lara had never really left: A world self-loathing misery.

"Please, Lara," Christine pleaded, "Let me send her away. Just a word. A word. That's not you. We know that. That can't be you. Just tell me! Tell me what I want to hear."

"I can't," Lara whimpered. "I can't."

But Bean would have none of her hesitation.

"_Lara, I'm afraid you have to answer the question_."

And the crowd agreed. They began to grumble. And complain. And protest. And, finally, to shout.

And though Lara pinched her eyes more tightly shut, and though she covered her ears with her palms, and though she started screaming and screaming to make the sounds of their voices go away, nothing could block out the suddenly building, growing, accusing demands of her treacherous audience, whose blind faith had been shattered by her refusal to answer this one simple question.

Their voices shouted: "Answer!", "Are you?" "A lie! A lie!", "Tell us the truth!", "False One! False One!"

And suddenly she had an idea. After all, this was no different than eight years ago, was it? With all of the questions and concerns of all of those well-meaning strangers? None of them knew where she'd been. What she was. None of them could possibly have _imagined_ the truth. She had learned to let them answer their own questions: "Where were you last year? Abroad in school?" "Yes, yes," she'd say, "that's just it." Was she ever the one who argued her own alibi? No. Was she the one to even first _suggest_ her alibi? To her sudden relief, no! Lara then realized: She didn't have to confront her demons at all! All she had to do was relinquish herself to the kinder impressions of strangers! All she had to do was let their well-intentioned errors shelter her fractured, jellied psyche! It was a method that she _knew_ would work. That she _knew_ could save her. She couldn't invent her own lies, but she knew that in time she could come to believe in _their_s. Their lies, their glorious lies! Lies more comfortable than even the lies she could invent for herself! Besides, was there really any choice? The cold fact of the matter was that she was being offered a future: A future of greatness beyond human dreams! But no one with such a past deserved such a future!

Thus forced to desperation, she turned to the crowd:

"Do _you_ think that's me?" Lara cried out to them: Her faithful, her adoring, her soul-saving multitudes. "Do you think that could possibly be me?"

"What are you doing?" asked the girl, instantly horrified.

But the crowd responded just as she'd hoped.

Lara grinned as a look of horror and dread swept across the little girl's face, her near-triumph instantly reversed and sent slipping away. The crowd in the auditorium stood up to voice support for Lara Croft's denials--letting themselves believe what they preferred to believe, just as everyone in Lara's life always had. They cried out, "No, don't believe her!" and "Never you!" and "Impossible!" and "She's a liar! A Liar!" Their cries built up toward a ceiling-shaking crescendo that threatened to drown out every other sound: Christine's voice, Bean's, the little girl's, Lara's, even her inner thoughts….

But somehow, through it all, through all the adulation and self-affirming flattery of the deeply-beloved crowd, somehow, even through all of this, Lara could still hear the little girl's dying plea:

"I'm not lying! I'm telling the truth! Please, Lara! Please! Don't do this to me again! _Please!_"

Lara made the crowd get louder and louder and louder, brutally pouring down volume and vehemence to drown the 'false' witness like a candle in a storm. Yet, the little girl's voice remained unrelenting, however loud the crowd became. Lara tried to force herself into a place in her mind where there might be only herself and the crowds and their worshipping affirmations; but, this little girl, her dirty secret, was following her everywhere, whispering her poison. She was like a stain on a blouse that she couldn't wash or change. The little one was tenacious. A demon on her shoulder. A monkey on her back. The little beast threatened to be with her forever.

So there was only one thing left to do.

She would have to _crush_ the little voice.

She would have to squelch it utterly.

That was how she had finally resolved this problem eight years ago. They had rewarded her for it, too. They had clapped her on her back, had returned her books and her music and everything else they feared might derange her again. They had finally released her from the hospital. All she had to do was reach out and strangle the life from this one, stupid little girl. A little girl that no one else but she herself knew, and whom her family honor demanded no one else ever meet. No one would miss her. And then, with the little harpy gone, she could remake herself in whatever way the adoring crowds fancied she should be. She could _become_ their savior, however false. She could become their fake perfect soul. All it would cost is one murdered year. All she had to do was reach out and crush that little girl's soul beneath the heel of her vanity.

Was there really any choice?

No one with her past _deserved_ her future.

Those were the rules of the family: Choose honor, or choose madness!

Choose blissful ignorance or choose unending dysfunction!

Choose to win, or lose everything!

Wrap your fingers around the little girl's throat--just like eight years ago--and kill the voice. Kill it!

So Lara took the little girl's neck into her hands, and with the sounds of the cheering crowds applauding her, she started to _squeeze_, feeling the pain instantly subsiding. The guilt was subsiding. The memory--the knowledge of what an awful human being she once was--was fading away. Relieved, she let her eyes roll up from her prey and wind aimlessly through the auditorium, where, unexpectedly, they settled upon her grandfather's VIP box, and his icy, stoic, observation of her.

He could see her now. He could see what she was doing.

Eight years ago, it had been Grandfather who had been the one to protect from all of this. All of the awful truth about where his precious Lara had gone, and what his precious Lara had done. This was what her Uncle Jake, her cousins, and all of the Croft Estate's lawyers and servants had conspired to prevent: The terrible event of her grandfather ever laying sight, sound, or rumor upon the facts of Lara's folly. Surely, this knowledge would kill his soul as soundly as it would kill the family name. Lara had been right: Grandfather was the only one who truly stood judgment in this dream; everything else was mere prelude. Everything else was mere exercise. Not Bean and his patient forbearance; not the vengeful crowds and their angry encouragement; not Lara's worshipping admirers and their long-suffering devotion: None of these finally mattered. This was more than the face of a man or a father or a judge--all of which Lara might have easily conspired to deceive or win to favor.

This was the face of Reality and Consequence.

This was the cold unflinching face of Truth itself.

And then, just as her hands tightened for their final, fatal, squeeze about the child's tender, trembling throat, Lara finally--_finally_--realized just what exactly this thing was that she was killing. This child wasn't just some ugly abomination! She was _Truth_. She was Truth itself. And if Lara could kill Truth--if Lara was _willing_ to kill Truth--then where, indeed, would be her vision, her will, or her perfection? For eight years, this piece of herself had quietly dictated its rebellion over the rest of her. It was a little ghost, a tiny voiceless secret, but it had rightly called itself her soul for eight long despairing years. Frankly, whatever its delicacy, it controlled her. If she couldn't bring herself to make peace with this truth now, what lies might it mislead her to entertain next?

But such horror! How could she admit to it? How could she face these facts of herself in her waking life? How could she cope with knowing--with _consciously_ knowing--the truth about herself? Would she ever be able to look anyone in the eye again? Could anyone understand? Could Bean? Could Christine? Could the crowd?

And suddenly Lara knew the answer. Not merely the answer to these questions, but the answer to all of her tests, present, past, and those to come. It was an answer so obvious that it astonished her in its simplicity: **_It didn't matter._** It didn't matter if Bean understood, or if Christine did, or the crowds, or even she _herself_ understood. She was what she was, and Truth was the Truth--no matter who lied or how they lied. The game indeed was over; the gods had, indeed, finished playing: The human rules she so feared were nothing more than a great hoax, and it was time, indeed, for her to break them and be on. There was no more time to linger here, no longer cause to remain dead in this place of falsehood, vanity, and denial. She and the little girl embraced, and where two once were, **_one_** then proudly stood.

The crowd panicked for a moment, but quickly found calm.

Bean raised his eyes as Lara's enlightenment slowly reached him, too.

Christine was shocked, and would remain shocked for a time, but she, too, would soon recover.

And Grandfather was gone.

"I am Lara Croft," Lara said, addressing the crowd. She did not ask them this time, she told them. She claimed both her identity and her Prize--taking it gently from her father's hands and placing it upon her _own_ head. She told them all emphatically again: "_I_ am Lara Croft."

The sound that came to her from the auditorium depths was at first a mere rumble in its aisles, but it gradually grew louder and more defined. The crowds stood, slowly, in synchrony. All together, the crowd, her would-be judges, her vanquished critics, her astonished admirers, her worshippers, her supporters, stood; and she regarded them all from high above, gazing down upon them. Their noise resolved into a chant, and their chants resolved into coherent syllables, and the syllables said:

"KA-WA-LYNN, KA-WA-LYNN, KA-WA-LYNN..."

The sound, the chanting, the ritual clapping of hands and the ritual stomping of feet grew louder and louder until it could be heard not only from the aisles, but from the balconies, from the boxes, from the ceiling, from the walls, from the very stage itself! Everything came alive, combining into a singular roar of confidence, of praise, of glory, and of fear: "KA-WA-LYNN! KA-WA-LYNN!" Soul-charging, fervent.

Until, at last, it finally became _True_.

"KA-WA-LYNN! KA-WA-LYNN! KA-WA-LYNN!"

It was so loud that she almost couldn't hear Bean when he shook her shoulder and whispered to her:

--"Don't disappoint us"--

Puzzled and shaken, Lara suddenly realized a moment afterward that it wasn't Bean's voice! In fact it--!

* * *

She was awake.

Doc had shaken her shoulder, and she had come up from a deep and encompassing sleep. Her eyes and her mind focused, and she realized where she was: In the attack helicopter they had commandeered in New Mexico after forming their plan and executing its Phase One. Phase Two would follow soon. It was already night-time over the Arizona desert. They must have come along quite far in their journey while she slept.

It was about to begin.

It was about to end.

Doc repeated himself:

"Wake up," he said. "We're coming into position. Don't disappoint us."

But Lara was already awake.

More awake than she had been in years.

"Don't worry, Doc," she confidently assured him, releasing herself from her seat and getting into place for her fast-rope down, "I won't."


	32. Chapter Thirty One: Showdown

"_I'm in conniptions for the final act you came here for_

_The one derivative you manage is the one I abhor_

_I need a minute to elaborate for everyone the_

_Everyday bullshit things that you have done_

"_Your impossible ego fuck is like a_

_Megalomaniacal tab on my tongue _

_You fucking touch me I will rip you apart_

_I'll reach in and take a bite out of that _

_Shit you call a heart_

"_I don't mind being oogled, ridiculed _

_Made to feel minuscule_

_If you consider the source, it's kinda pitiful _

_The only thing you really know about me is---- _

_That's all you're ever know!" _

"_I'm turning it around like a knife in the shell _

_I wanna understand why but I'm hurting myself_

_I haven't got a lot of reasons to stop it_

_I just can't drop it_

_I'm just a bastard but at least I admit it_

_At least I admit it! _

"_I know why you blame me _

_I know why you blame yourself _

_I know why you plague me _

_I know why you plague yourself!_"

**--Slipknot.**

"_Everyone crying and burning and frying_

_In my dream_

_Everyone needs just a little bit more to believe_

_Intention, no bleeding_

_Thinking what I have to do_

_Intention, more bleeding_

_I'm coming home for you_

"_Life was just a simple dream_

_Of doing what was right_

_Broken into pieces when day turned into night_

_Life was but a simple dream_

_Now I see is red_

_Broken into fragments_

_Feel the thunderhead!_

"_Send the word ahead_

_Don't want to be alone_

_Time to wake the dead_

_I'm coming home_

_Send this word ahead_

_Now I'm cast in stone_

_Feel the thunderhead_

_I'm coming home_

_I'm coming home..._

_I'm coming home..._

_I'm coming home..._

_I'm coming..._"

**--Overkill.**

**INSTRUMENTAL: "Air Force One."**

**--Jerry Goldsmith**

**(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Entire Album)**

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: "**Showdown**."**

Ten hours.

Ten hours of waking and sleeping, of packing and unpacking, of explaining, debating, arguing, and planning.

Ten hours

Two hours to intercept a unit of Peruvian Coast Guard--to whom she had had only to flash her credentials to see herself and her companions granted immediate luxury passage to the nearest airport. "Luxury", of course, meant three hours of the most ramshackle helicopters, rickety prop-planes, and filthy buses Lara had ever seen; but, once they were at the airport, they boarded the finest Leer jet the country could procure--and, in that, they raced to White Sands, New Mexico.

And they armed-up.

Ten hours after leaving the Ingu Valley, and they were already on the final leg of their race toward California. It had been ten hours of haste and boredom. Deliberation and frenzy. Race to the next bus; snooze on the plane. And--whenever there was privacy--discuss, plan, reveal. In all, she had caught less than two hours of sleep, catch-as-catch-can; but that had been rest enough. The closer they got to home, the more she understood--and the more zealous she became. She was as awake then as she had been in years.

There was no stopping her now.

If Corbin had wanted to stop her, he had shown no sign of it. It seemed very strange that, among the hundred or more Croft paramilitary she had encountered along the way, _none _were members of Corbin's presumably vast armada of flunkies; but no one interfered. No one made any attempt to stand between her and what even _she_ thought were outrageous demands for equipment, weapons, supplies, ammunition, and indulgence. They cooperated out of fear, Lara supposed. Hoped. After all, they may have cooperated (and Lara dreaded the thought) because Corbin had _ordered_ them to. The thought made her flesh creep. It meant that he saw this confrontation as a _showdown_: A ritual that demanded this sort of indulgence in the name of some twistedly scrupulous notion of fair play. It meant he had an ace-in-the-hole.

This time, however, Lara would have friends, too. The pilot, Herc Morigushi; his flight chief, Bill Patterson; the two former Project soldiers, Rafael "Doc" Blaise and Paul Cavanaugh. Once they had pooled their knowledge and had discovered the true horror of Corbin's plan, they had come easily to an understanding. It wasn't a pact, or a contract, or a treaty. They weren't "agreeing to disagree." What these soldiers had learned made them wish they'd rebelled years before. They had joined up with Lara to _stop _Jacob Corbin. To stop him cold.

With Lara Croft as _their _ace, these five brave souls planned to save the world.

First stop: Los Angeles, California.

Their black helicopter was flying in low.

It was finally about to begin.

It was finally about to end.

* * *

It was funny how Christine always managed to wind up in charge of these things.

She hadn't even heard that there was going to be a Debutante's Ball for Lara until yesterday afternoon, and yet here she was; organizing the activities, coordinating the entertainment, and arranging the refreshments. It was fabulous turn-out. Everyone who was anyone was here, from some of the most important names in business and industry to David Croft's innumerable friends among the United States' government. Senators, congressmen, cabinet ministers, political advisors. It was an impressive, thronging soirée, dotted delightfully--like punctuation, she supposed--with some of the hottest names in show-business and professional athletics. The party was a veritable who's-who of American high-society. The irony, she supposed, was that the guest of honor wasn't even an American herself!

That is, it _would_ have been ironic--if only her prodigal boss would condescend to make an appearance.

Apparently, Lara had actually phoned from South America this morning--though not to cancel this party, as would have seemed the sensible thing, but rather to confirm that she would be arriving as planned. Little else, apparently, had been learned from her in this cryptic--and, frankly, rather dubious--phone conversation. Not even a confirmation of whether or not she had, in fact, been in that plane crash with Jacob Corbin. By contrast, no one seemed to be querying Jacob Corbin at all about his niece's conspicuous absence. It was almost as though there were something perfectly normal in all of this.

Obviously, something very strange was going on in the Croft family, but since it involved only the people who were higher than herself in the social hierarchy, Christine felt determined to not allow herself to betray any overt concern. If all of the VIPs immediately around her seemed perfectly willing--and apparently even eager--to treat recent events as business-as-usual, who was she to rattle her saber in such earnest? She was Christine Palaos, Lara's personal attaché, and that was all. Her job was to ensure that the punch bowl was full and that the chefs had sprinkled enough paprika in the pâté, not to police the ethics of her betters. There was little point in trying to understand these people on any kind of a deeper level, anyway. After all, the rich were "different". So different, in fact, that she almost didn't shrug at all when she starting hearing the forceful _bump-bump-bump_ sounds outside that signaled the approach of a low-hovering helicopter. She knew this sound. Five years of gallivanting the globe on Lara's shirt-tails had provided her that education, at least.

Through the glass wall that barred the parlor from the patio, Christine saw a dangling black-clad figure silhouetted against Hacienda's spectacular hilltop view of the Los Angeles skyline. It was swiftly descending a rope to the grounds of the pristinely landscaped estate. Christine could tell from its demeanor, attitude, and even its gait--once it started marching up the circle drive--that this was, indeed, her prodigal client. But why was Lara doing this? Why had she chosen this day, of all days, to be so radical? What was she trying to prove _this_ time?

Christine glanced back at the guests, who had already, out of curiosity, begun to congregate along the glass. Christine was compiling in her mind all of her usual damage-control catch-phrases and Lara-behavior-control strategies, but she knew that none of them would likely be adequate to this extraordinary task. These guests were too high-caliber, and the effrontery of this slight well too far beyond the mere 'unforgivable'.

_Why, dear God, Lara, why? _Christine trembled inwardly. _Tonight of all nights? This of all parties? Why? _

It was going to be a very long evening.

And when the prodigal debutant entered, Christine was none-the-more relieved. Who had dressed her? Rambo? Snug, black, army clothes and gear?--cute, but incredibly inappropriate. Army boots?--how unforgivably ugly! Greasy, unwashed hair?--tied-back, no less?

And she was wearing her sunglasses.

At night.

And--_dear God in Heaven help us!_--were those machineguns _real?_

She rushed to greet her client--to intercept her, really--at the door.

"Dear God, Lara!" Christine whispered, though she felt as though she were screaming.

"Good evening, Christine," Lara chimed back; smiling, but in a most unbecoming way.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Christine pleaded, stopping her in the foyer. It wasn't quite too late: Immediately behind her was the palace stairs up to the study, tea room, and the bed chambers. With haste and good luck, she could still whisk her client away and get her properly cleaned and dressed before any more than a handful of their esteemed guests realized who she actually was.

That is, Christine _could _have accomplished this, if only Lara herself would just, for a minute, have been willing to cooperate!

"How are you this fine night?" Lara said, not really even acknowledging her--simply marching past.

Straight toward the guests.

"No, please," Christine pleaded, trying to keep up, "you can't let them see you this way! Lara! Do you have any idea who's in there?"

"Oh, nonsense," Lara said peremptorily. "Who's in there?"

But she didn't let Christine answer, continuing instead:

"Well, whoever it is, its time for them to be on their way."

"Lara! Lara!"

But by then it was too late. All of the eyes of all of the guests had become fixed upon the strange girl in the strange clothes with the submachineguns in her hands. While Christine winced and the crowd gasped in astonishment, Lara hopped atop an hors-d'oeuvre table and addressed the massing crowd.

"Good evening," she announced, cordially enough, considering circumstances. "I'm Lara Croft. Thank you for coming."

There was a spattering of uncomfortable applause, but Christine never knew who it came from--her face was buried in her hands. She snapped back to attention quickly enough, however.

"NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, ALL OF YOU!" the sexy beast roared, whipping her two machineguns up and blasting the screaming hell out of everything--the ceiling, the walls, the space above everyone's heads--!

The guests screamed, scattered, and scrambled for cover while the scowling vixen riddled the parlor with bullets. Chandeliers fell; priceless framed art leaped from walls; cabinets, crystal settings, and fine display cases shattered and crumpled--while smoke bellowed from screaming nozzles that were slowly turning red-hot in Lara's hands.

The room, obediently--swiftly--emptied. Just slightly faster than her magazines did.

The guests poured--squeezed, really--through the several large sliding-glass exits between the parlor and the patio, running out into the circle drive to leap into their cars or limousines and beat hasty retreats from this hilltop madhouse.

In seconds, the entire parlor was empty.

Empty, that is, but for Christine; who had remained fixed in her place, mortified.

But then that great, beautiful, beast turned her mighty gaze Christine's way, and all the little servant-girl could manage was a pathetic, frightened little gasp. Lara then extended a lone pinkie-finger from her pistol grip and used it to flutter Christine a dainty pinky-wave. It was playful gesture; but it, and the sadistic smirk on Lara's Rayban-shaded face, was enough to terrify Christine into a scramble. She merged into the tail end of the evacuating guests, begging admittance to the backseat of a limonene from some random withdrawing stranger.

* * *

There was something amazing about Los Angeles at night.

There was an energy. A frenetic and invigorating energy that caused people to simply _expect _the out-of-the-ordinary. Of all the major cities in the United States, only its unofficial capital, New York, could boast a comparable population of citizens so who were as hard to astonish. And yet, even in New York, the populace had a stiff regimen of social norms that the L.A.-liens of Los Angeles were happily allowed to transgress. Best-notable among those norms, of course, were norms of dress. Only in LA could two black-clad soldiers, fully-armed for war, slide down ropes from a hovering black helicopter without attracting any notice whatever.

When Doc and Cavanaugh had run from their landing zone into the main intersection, only a handful of the nearby businessfolk even seemed to notice them. And, of those who did pause in interest, not one of them produced a cell phone nor rushed to a phone booth. Not one, apparently, saw any need to report the event as either a crime or a curiosity. Perhaps they presumed the two were up to some official government business that was no business of theirs. Perhaps they fancied the two to be actors in a movie being filmed--an illusion, little doubt, contributed to by the queer fact that their "helicopter"--despite its size and functionality--was simply _too quiet _to possibly be "real."

The men landed, disappeared into the shadows, and the helicopter vanished in a whoosh.

And, meanwhile, the pedestrians kept walking, disinterestedly.

* * *

It was an amazing number of guests.

Lara found a droll pleasure in how many people had come to cavort beneath her grandfather's roof for nothing more important than the celebration of her own little birthday. She had recognized several faces among them as prominent people in politics and industry, and found it impossible to imagine that they had come all this way for the sake of her humble honor alone. Certainly there had to have been some of Uncle Jake's hand in this. It was strange though: Who knew for certain that she was even coming? As she had read in the newspapers during her ten hour process of returning home, her plane crash was common knowledge; including the names of those it had supposedly killed (being herself and Jacob Corbin). It seemed incredible to her that the news of her death had not preceded her. She herself had certainly sent no word to anyone; and yet this soirée had definitely more the quality of a debutante's ball than any somber wake.

Oh well, she thought. There was no time to worry about it--so long as the guests were out of _her_ way.

Lara discarded her empty MP5s in a dainty toss, jumping from the table and ascending the Hacienda's large, curving, staircase. She should have wished she had had the time to explain her case to the guests in a more civilized way, and then simply _asked _them to leave; but, then again, she couldn't deny that there had been a certain rambunctious glee in watching those haughty rich and powerful wet themselves and scatter like bunnies.

She had used a pair of standard MP5s so that she could save the secret of her Thunderers for Corbin himself. Besides, there was no point in risking her guests' counting her shots from twelve to fifteen to one-hundred or higher, and then returning later to ask questions. Even if the VIP's had been too petrified to notice such sundries, their Secret Service-trained security guards certainly might have--and Lara wouldn't have wanted them distracted from their main job of getting their charges out of the line of fire and into their safe, bullet-proof cars. If they'd stopped to count, they might also have thought to shoot back--and then there would have been even more blood on Lara's hands.

But that was done now.

With her guests obediently vacated, Secret Service men and all, she was finally free to work.

She drew her pistols and marched up the palace stairs.

* * *

Beat cops love their coffee.

Portersmith hadn't been on the business district beat more than four weeks, and he already knew all six of the best cafes and the thirteen best delis by name and address. He knew where to go for a late-night 'grave-robber' and what times the best 'kick-starts' start serving in the morning. He knew the best times to go to each establishment, when each had its best brewers, or its most generous mixers, or its most talented concoctionists on duty. And donuts--of course--were another specialty entirely. Hotdog venders, pretzel grinders, and ice cream truck drivers he knew by name; but, as yet, he had not seen the face nor heard the name of even one prominent drug dealer, gang-banger, mobster, nor straight-up crook. Apart from chasing down the infrequent hot-rodding frat-boy, his entire career, so far, seemed to consist of annoying good people on their way to and from work with nickel-and-dime speeding tickets and expired-plate stops.

And it wouldn't have been so bad were it not for his partner's dog-gone cheeriness about it.

"Thank God it's quiet," McIntyre said.

Their patrol car sat perched between billboards in an empty lot off to the side of the main drag. All around them was the night's quiet urban jungle of skyscrapers and storefront canopies, mostly closed for the night. It wasn't especially late, but this was a part of town where things tended to get bundled up early. There wasn't much in this neighborhood but office buildings and high-brow cafes and the like. After dark, even the execu-troids and their briefcase-mounted compound-limbs emigrated to greener pastures. A few late-night stragglers gave them the welcome relief of a speeding Lexus or a couple of carelessly blown NO U-TURN signs; but, generally, things in the business district were as boring as the night was long.

"Thank God," McIntyre sighed.

It was the forth repetition of the mantra tonight. Portersmith had heard it three times too many already.

"Oh, fuck this, man. I'm bored as shit!" he groaned back.

"Don't jinx it, kid," McIntyre said. "You're going to learn to appreciate it after a while, believe me."

"Nah," Portersmith assured him. "I'm not going to be here that long."

"Yeah?" McIntyre replied.

"Oh, no, man," Portersmith explained. "I'm going to make detective by thirty. Shit, lieutenant by then."

"Ambitious..."

To Portersmith, it didn't sound like a compliment.

"You gotta pay your dues, kid," McIntyre explained.

"How long you been on a beat, Macky?" Portersmith asked. "What, ten years?"

"No comment."

It figured he'd been a beat cop that long. It would have figured if it were _twice_ that. Men like McIntyre grow old on a beat. Clocking speeders, getting cats out of trees. Doing the thankless work that….

Well, that no one _thanks_ you for.

"Not me, man," Portersmith said.

What McIntyre didn't understand--would probably never understand--was how important destiny was.

When Portersmith had been an Army MP, his first partner had taken a hit to the head from a drunk in a bar. Portersmith wasn't there, of course; but the event and its aftermath had always made him think. There hadn't been a whole lot that that poor kid could have done, with his back to the bad guy like that. But, suddenly, BAM! Down he went. Paralyzed for life. No matter how carefully you act, when your number is up, it's up. Knowing that, knowing that its all written in the stars, or on some holy tablet, or however you want to think about it, it just didn't make any damned sense to sit around waiting for some guy to come up and whack you in the back of your head for nothing. If you're going anyway, at the very least you should go down for a _reason_. This beat was a waste of time.

"You know," Portersmith continued, "God didn't put me on this earth to sit here like this, slobberin' on a donut."

"You might take a different view when you've got kids," McIntyre said.

"Maybe," Portersmith replied--not meaning it, of course. "But then again, maybe not. You know my daddy was a cop."

"Yeah, I knew him."

"Everybody knew him."

"He was a good man."

"But he walked a beat his whole entire career," Portersmith said. "I don't want to be like that, you know?"

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe," Portersmith lied. "But I gotta ask myself: You know? What if?"

"What if what?"

Now McIntyre was becoming annoying. The man was older--a lot older--maybe 45--but that didn't entitle him to be the authority on all things good and right. They partnered them up together, the lieutenant had said, because Portersmith was just coming in and McIntyre was just getting out--two more years until his Twenty. It was a good match, wisdom for youth. But McIntyre didn't have much wisdom to offer that Portersmith could see, and his lack of youth was worse than worthless sometimes. Comments like 'what if what' were cases-in-point.

"I don't know," Portersmith said. "Just a chance to...you know...be somebody."

"Your daddy was somebody, bro', and so are you," McIntyre insisted. "You're LAPD! Don't ever forget it."

Portersmith was ready to let the subject slide and sip his coffee, or light a cigarette; but, before he could do either, he noticed odd motion on the other side of the street from their speed trap. He wouldn't have thought anything of it except for their clothes and equipment and attitude. They weren't in suits or jeans. They were decked out in straight-up Army duds. He was going to nudge McIntyre, but he had apparently seen them as well.

"What's up with these guys?" Portersmith muttered.

They were scurrying like shadows-in-training along the foot of the skyscraper across the street, and were about to disappear into a parking garage beneath the base of one of the larger buildings. In the light of the overheads, there couldn't be any doubt about their black BDU uniforms, or their Army load-bearing vests, or their rucksacks, or even the crisp black softcaps on their heads.

"Full battle-rattle," whispered McIntyre. Apparently he had been a vet, too--he knew the vernacular. That was certainly a notch in his favor. "Jesus, don't they even see us?"

Portersmith chuckled.

"Collared a couple kids like that on Fort Benning a couple years back," Portersmith said, grabbing his night stick and tightening his gun belt. "They were out sneaking around in their ninja costumes. Ran right past our squad car. Looks like Halloween's early this year, too. Call it in, huh Macky? I'll go."

"What?" replied McIntyre nervously. "Those were kids? You sure?"

McIntyre was such a dud. Of course they were kids. Probably local Army brats in daddy's clothes, out on a dare.

"Nothing to break into 'round here," Portersmith said. "The garage is empty this time of night. No cars. No stores."

"Alright," McIntyre conceded, still nervous. "But if they ain't kids, you wait for me!"

"Will do."

And at that, Portersmith started out for what he was sure was going to be the only action of the night: returning two teens to their embarrassed parents--and surely ruining what had probably been the start of a hellacious initiation run. A club, a gang, a fraternity. Those had been the days.

He could vaguely hear McIntyre calling the station for backup while he jogged across the street after them, entering an underground garage whose overhead sign read:

**PARKING:**

**CROFT INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL**

"**Life, Prosperity, Progress"

* * *

**

The Hacienda held so many memories.

So much nostalgia.

How often had she streaked down precisely this balcony, overlooking just that parlor, with a weapon in her hands (or maybe even two?), just like this. They had been toys in those days, of course; but the funny thing about nostalgia was how little it cared about things like that. She wasn't playing; and yet 'playing soldier' in the Hacienda felt just the same, despite the real guns. Even her burning reluctance to intrude upon her grandfather's sacrosanct study revisited her in her over-grown childhood, causing her to hesitate in the threshold of the chamber--despite how her adult thoughts assured her that this was where she had been instructed to go. What she had been instructed to destroy.

She found the chamber empty, and that somehow surprised her.

It would have been a crass and unimaginative thing to fill the study with men-in-black; but, somehow, Lara had expected just that. She hadn't realized how much she had expected it, however, until she found herself standing there, guns at ready, pointing aggressively at harmless and dusty book shelves. She sighed; but, instead of relief, she only felt her worry deepening. At some point in this mission, she would _have _to meet resistance. She wished Jake would just get on with it.

Still, it made her jump to hear his voice.

"_Hello, Lara_."

A television among the volumes on a far wall sprung to life, revealing Jake's face against an unfamiliar backdrop.

"Hello, Uncle Jake," Lara replied, after she regained her wits.

"_I'm glad you could make it_."

"I'm sure you are."

"_You sure missed a hell of a party_."

"Caught the end."

"_Lara_," Jake said, more seriously, "_I'm sure you're upset with me, and you have good reason to be. No one is denying that. But you have to hear my side_."

"Why don't you come out, then?" she asked, not realizing her own tell-tail clenching of her pistol grips, "we'll hash this out like reasonable people."

"_No, not like this, Lara_," he said. "_Like friends. Like family. That's who you are to me. You are so important to me that I got completely out of your way so you wouldn't feel pressured. I let you do whatever you wanted. I didn't stop you in South America or in White Sands. I could have. Surely you know that. I could have put a stop to this like that_." And he snapped his fingers.

"You could have _tried_."

"_Just so_," Jake said. "_But I didn't. Do you know why?_"

"Because it would have clued me in to who your goons were," Lara growled. "and I would have dispatched them as efficiently as I am about to dispatch you."

Jake continued as though Lara hadn't spoke, "_I didn't because I cherish you_."

"You cherish me?" she laughed. "Is that why you repeatedly ordered me killed?"

"_Yes!_"

That response intrigued her. Where was he going with this?

"_Lara, you are special_," he said. "_You've only begun to understand how special. You can't imagine how hard it was for me order those soldiers after you. But I can't let anyone stand in the way of what must be done. Not you, not your grandfather, not even myself. I've done a lot of awful things in my life, and I count what I did to you in Peru as one of them; but because you are so special to me, and not despite it, I couldn't see you come to stand between me and the future. You know I never meant for you to even be in this mess. I tried to arrange your safe return home; but instead you insisted on coming after me. After that, there were no more choices. There were two possibilities, Lara: I could order my soldiers to kill you on the spot, or I could let you escape with what you knew, and then far worse things would have happened to you than simply being shot_."

"Worse than being shot?" Lara sneered.

"_Oh, Lara!_" Jake said. "_You're not just some athlete or a scholar! I don't know much of this you know. How much Bean or Rainy Hedgebrook told you, but it's too late to hold it back now. You have to know the truth_."

"That I'm an alien," she snapped.

"_Yes! That you're an alien!_"

He seemed quite disappointed he wouldn't get to reveal it himself.

"Yeah, well," she snapped. "Old news. I'm from a planet 8752-point-513 lightyears away in a sector charted Gamma-Theta. So what? Been there. Dealt with that."

"_And do you know what they do to aliens, Lara?_" he asked, pleading. "_Do you have any idea at all?_"

"Flash blinky lights at them? Play them John Williams tunes?" she said.

"_They cut them open to see what makes them tick_," he said. "_Or in your case, what makes them jump and run and think so fast. God, Lara! Why did you do it? Why didn't you just land that fucking plane? Now they know about you. Once you crossed that line, there was no choice anymore: Do you die with dignity, in a stand-up fight, or do you get snatched up the in the night and tortured for years?_"

"Like you did to my mother?"

"_Not...me..._" Jake insisted.

"Then who?"

Jake flushed, exasperated.

"_Jesus!_" he said. "_It's unfortunate you know so much! That only makes this more difficult_."

"_What did you do to my mother?_" she screamed.

"_Not me!_" insisted Jake, calming himself and continuing: "_Not me. But I'm the only one standing between them and you_."

"Is that a threat, Jake?" she asked.

"_It's plain fact!_" Jake said. "_You were born before they arrived. They figured out your mother had died in childbirth, but we never told them that we had you. I protected you, Lara. But that protection can only go so far!_"

"You protected me from whom, Jake?" sneered Lara, picking up on his misstep. "For twenty-one years, your 'they' never once suspected? There is no 'they'! _You _murdered my mother. And you dissected her and you studied her and you only kept me alive because you hoped that one day you might find use for me. All these years!"

"_No, Lara!_" Jake floundered. "_I never touched the alien body! I mean, they took it from me--well, I mean, not me, exactly--they never knew who I was, but--well, not by name! I was only--_"

"Enough! No more lies!" Lara shouted. "This discussion is closed."

Jake continued to flounder, "_Lara, you have to understand_--"

She swiftly shot out the television screen, but the voice continued from some other speaker.

"_Then it's the hard way_," he said, the pretense washed from his voice. "_You should have heard me out_."

And suddenly she sensed a slight rumble beneath her feet, as though something powerful and mechanical had revved to life. A dozen possibilities entered her imagination--and all were correct--but before she could respond, a solid slab of steel shot up in the doorway of the study, blocking her in. She heard the bulkhead lock heavily, three or four bolts in sequence. She kicked the door--and even shot it to be sure--but the metal was no façade. The door was solid. The room was sealed.

"_Don't struggle, Lara!_" Corbin said. "_You'll only injure yourself_."

But Lara didn't need the warning. She already knew she was being gassed.

"_It didn't have to come to this_," Corbin said. "_It could have been different_."

* * *

"Adam Two-One, this is Adam Two-Oh!"

It had been more than a minute since Officer McIntyre had last heard Officer Portersmith's voice. More than a minute since he had begun to realize it wasn't the pair of teenagers that Portersmith had clearly mistaken them to be. Since then, he had realized how he had let his sympathies for his young, bored, over-eager rookie get the best of him. He had let him go in alone, had given him the whole show, just so that the boy might get a little taste of something adventurous to break up the monotony of what would else have been a long and tedious shift. McIntyre was kicking himself inwardly, cursing himself out loud, hoping against hope that it was all just a mistake or a prank. Portersmith would report back in another second or two with a chuckle and an 'I got you.' But no such report seemed pending.

"Goddamnit, Portersmith answer me!"

Still nothing.

"Fuck!"

McIntyre switched to the Dispatch frequency.

"Dispatch, ETA on that backup?"

The radio crackled back, "_Adam Four-Three is getting en route now, ETA seven minutes_."

"Seven minutes?" barked McIntyre. "That rookie's in there all alone right now!"

The sound of his voice was self-indicting in his ears. He never should have let Portersmith go it alone. Never.

"Damnit," he whispered, lip trembling. He clenched the handmic: "Look, I'm going in there after him."

"_Negative Adam Two-Oh!_" the dispatcher cried. "_Stand by for_--"

"Look, Ann," insisted the veteran, "I sent him in there! If anything happened...I can't wait! I'm gone!"

"_Adam Two-Oh_," insisted the dispatcher, "_stand by and_--"

But he cut her off, returning the frequency to Portersmith's.

"Goddamn you, kid," sneered the middle-aged man, in his mind rattling off what disciplinary measures he might wind up facing for this, "this better not be some kind of fucking joke!"

But it wasn't as though he couldn't sympathize. It hadn't been that long ago that he had been in the same place, emotionally, as his young partner. You don't join the Force because you want a pension and a nice little place in the Valley. You join because you think you can make a contribution. Or (he had to admit it), because you think you can make a _difference_. There's an idealism in any young cop. And that was certainly Portersmith's trouble. He had been placed on the safer business beat to learn the ropes; and because it was their lieutenant's intent that hotheads like Portersmith be kept away from the real action until they had calmed down a little. The lieutenant himself would seem to have forgotten the most important lesson about the impetuousness of youth: Where there's boredom, youth finds a way of _inventing _excitement. In Portersmith's case, that meant either by playing a prank--as he had better be doing now--or, in the worst case, by insisting upon charging in alone when there was real danger.

And McIntyre had let him go.

But he had to admit that there was a certain appeal in what he was feeling, racing across that street. Charging in alone. Maybe he really _could _make a difference. The fact was, he had allowed the boy to go in alone because of _sympathy_. Sympathy and envy.

He crossed the street, and entered the brightly-lit underground parking garage, and he felt his pulse pounding in a way that it hadn't pounded for years. He drew his pistol, and he whispered one more call to Portersmith through the handmic on his collar. Hearing nothing--as expected--he moved farther in, sweeping and seeing nothing. The garage was empty--three levels down, one up. There was a small glass-and-steel elevator in an island at the center of the wide open concrete expanse, but not soul in sight.

At least, not right away.

It was a shadow at first; something just around the corner of the elevator island. He saw quickly, though, that it was actually a hand--a hand wearing black BDUs. It retreated from sight the instant he cried out at it.

"Hey!" McIntyre snapped, his entire body flushing with adrenaline. He dashed after the shape, crying out again and again, "Hey!" and "Police officer, freeze!"

But when he got around the corner, he was greeted with a more terrible sight than any he might ever have imagined. Portersmith was alive (there was that at least) but the look of horror and incredulity that writhed behind his dumb eyes put McIntyre to a fatal pause. Portersmith had been hog-tied: His mouth was bound with duct-tape; his legs, the same; and his wrists were bound with what were presumably his own handcuffs. And there was no sign of either of the two black-clad figures who had done it.

Only someone mighty powerful would dare do this to a cop. Someone who thought they could get away with it. He and his partner had stumbled into something that was _way _over their heads. Maybe the mob. Maybe worse. All McIntyre knew was that he wanted to run away, and run away fast! But he couldn't just leave Portersmith behind. He became so caught up in the effort to untie his partner's legs that he didn't even realize how Portersmith's mute groans of horror were actually attempts to warn him about what was coming around the elevator behind him.

Mac heard:

"Goodnight, cracker."

And went he black for a long, long time.

* * *

"_Don't bother!_" chuckled Corbin as Lara's lightning hands ripped her gasmask from its small pouch at her side. "_This is the good stuff. It'll will go right through that thing._"

And it was true: Even after clearing and sealing the mask about her cheeks, she could still feel the tickle in her nose and the building weariness in her mind. She exhaled that dose of poison and threw the useless rubber mask away.

Right away she went to business. Somewhere in the study there was a way out, and she was going to find it. There were no windows and no door anymore, but none of the information she had learned from her new allies had had anything to do with these. With her face a callow, blank mask of jilted rage, she went at the book shelves, ripping everything down, smashing the shelves as best she could, sweeping the volumes away.

"_What are you doing?_" asked Corbin bemusedly, clearly watching her through the lens of some hidden camera.

Of course, she couldn't answer; and she didn't want to. Corbin was the enemy, pure and simple. She had to stop wasting her time playing pretend negotiations. The clock was ticking.

"_How long can you hold your breath?_" Corbin asked, clearly impressed.

The books were down, and the shelves were all stripped, but Lara still hadn't found what she was after. So her pistols came out and she started chopping the varnished grain to splinters at rapid-fire. She streaked destruction left and right; at first seemingly randomly, and then, finally, with what must have become clear to Corbin was a deliberate, intelligent, and methodical pattern.

"_Ah hah!_" he said, revealing to her that her goal was just before her.

The entire study was encased in steel: ceiling, walls, and floor. But there were two types of metal: The thick, heavy metal of the plain walls, and the thinner metal that paneled the moving doors. When Lara heard her rounds '_clang_' instead of '_cling_', she knew she had found her elevator. She launched herself at the wood and ripped down the entire façade, willy-nilly, with her bare hands.

"_Congratulations!_" shouted Corbin. "_Bravo! What next?_"

Indeed, the elevator was closed, sealed, and locked. Its control panel required a security card for access. After trying the door, pushing at the door, and finally even kicking at the door, Lara settled back into her usual favorite. She shot open the security card reader and attacked its internal wires with alacrity.

"_Oh, come on!_" complained Corbin. "_You've got to be getting a little light-headed by now!_"

Whether it were true or not, Lara herself couldn't tell. She wouldn't know until she breathed her first breath of clean air and shook it off--a relief she sensed might come sooner than Corbin must think, because she found that the security card reader was one of the simpler types. Apparently someone had gone cheep on them. Perhaps no one figured that anyone would find this hidden elevator save by accident--and thus they would only need a simple discouragement to protect the secret. As for other, more serious infiltrators, the designers surely knew that no amount of simple electronic security would have protected them in any case. After all, if Lara were following their first plan, she would blown a hole in the building with the C4 explosives she was carrying in her knapsack.

Regardless, she soon crossed the proper wires, and the elevator doors opened.

"_Aren't you something?_" mused Corbin, as Lara left his speaker behind in the study only to hear him talking through another in the elevator. "_Who says you read too much, eh?_"

She desired a whiff of the fresh air that briefly wafted over her with the opening of the doors, but she restrained the impulse: Surely, it was already poisoned. Still, she could feel the burn in her mind and limbs. She knew her body's Gaian enhancements meant that she could withstand far worse than five minutes of hypoxia--she had already withstood worse that day--but that knowledge alone couldn't make the pain go away. It had been easier underwater where there hadn't actually _been_ any air. In the elevator, where there was the illusion of a perfect atmosphere, holding her breath like this made her want to beat her head against the wall. Still, she kept holding her breath; and she surveyed the inside of the elevator, shaking, anxious to choose a button. Her options were simple enough:

Four buttons: **STUDY**, **QUARTERS**, **OFFICES**, and the unpresuming **BOTTOM**.

She needn't choose for herself, however. Before she could touch anything, the elevator doors began to close, and one of the destinations lit up on its own:

**BOTTOM**.

* * *

In his day, Kimble had been a sensible spook.

Sensible to the degree that a spook was supposed to be sensible. That is, to remain quiet, stay invisible, and to get in and out without anyone ever knowing you were there or what exactly you had done. That meant operating alone, or in very small groups. One kept contact with some distant observer-controller, certainly; but _distant_ would have been the operative word. There was something distinctly indiscreet about operating the way they were, with so many other people also operating all around him. It was, well, _unspooky_ to be jostling against each other in the darkness like this.

When his team took over the top floor of the Croft International L.A. building, it hadn't been a 'take-over' at all. He'd seen to that. He had arranging for the late-working types to be rescheduled, the night-time clean-up crews to be discretely re-deployed elsewhere, and he had insured that no one had been skulking about the halls unscheduled. There had been a minimum of blood, and a complete lack of fuss--just as it's _supposed_ to work.

But now, scurrying the dark, jockeying shoulder to shoulder with other members of the Operations Force, listening to them tripping over desks and chairs and messy, criss-crossed, electric cables, he felt like some klutzy housewife trying to get a gaggle of neighborhood kids quiet for a surprise party. If the lights had been on, it wouldn't have bothered him a bit--since an office is a totally different psychological environment--but they were supposed to be spooks, operating like spooks, doing spooky things and thinking spooky thoughts. These clowns couldn't walk a straight line in the dark!

They were his men, and he loved them; but they weren't CIA, and they were a strain on his patience, to say the least. He would have loved to just turn on the lights and erase all this befuddling chaos, but he couldn't. The lights had to stay out. The building had to be closed for business, just like the rest of the business district. There had to be nothing going on here. Nothing to see. That was why it so troubled him when one of his club-footed soldiers came hastily upon him with such a troubling report:

"What is it, Perkins?" Kimble asked.

"Sir, we may have a problem."

* * *

Never being one to let others choose her destination for her, Lara quickly decided that the elevator was no longer the place to be. But, with the ceiling escape hatch locked with a reinforced clasp that remained stubbornly impervious to her Thunderers, she knew she would need to turn to something with a little more 'umpff' if she wanted to escape. She swiftly scaled the walls of the elevator, compressed a chunk of C4 into the escape hatch, dropped to the floor, and set off the explosive clay with a sparkling barrage of stellargetic rounds. The hatch blasted open, and she all but flew into the open elevator shaft--where her lungs, again, made their impassioned petition; and her mind, again, hushed them; undiplomatically.

The walls of the dark shaft were racing by, and there was no way to predict how much time she might have left before the elevator reached whatever place it was where Corbin obviously wanted her to be--and where she, obviously, didn't want to go. She had nothing in mind but a vague notion of a plan. Nothing specific, just a few good ideas. Really, they weren't her mind's ideas at all so much as her nagging, aggressively lobbying lungs' _demands_--and her embattled brain's lame-duck compromise.

Forcibly reminding herself that her joints were somehow reinforced, she hurled herself from the elevator's roof to the rungs of a service ladder. It was only after she had steadied herself on the ladder and had assured herself that her shoulders indeed were, by heaven's grace, still in their sockets, that the question 'which floor?' entered her hypoxic mind. But her lungs threatened immediate insurrection if she dared hold out for any floor. There was a grated ventilation shaft just above that would do just fine.

She shot the flimsy hinges supporting its metal screen and she clambered in, finding the fit not quite so tight as to be claustrophobic--although she did feel like an elephant tromping through a covered bridge, making the whole passageway shake. She crawled fast, searching the chambers beyond its grated vents for the fix for her lungs' metabolic discontent. As the seconds continued to pass, she found herself wondering how long she had left before her lungs, in a bloody coup, would cry out, "_viva la revolución!_" and would force her mouth to breathe, whatever the consequences. Luckily, she found what she was looking for, and she kicked out the grate to launch herself through.

She was clearly in the ventilation system's central control room, and she didn't bother to check the place for enemy soldiers. She was feeling what little was left of either her self-control or her consciousness--or both--plugging away at her mind, tick-tick-ticking down the seconds. She found the air processing computer, and she swiftly scrolled through its instructions pages. Thankfully, they weren't encrypted. She determined that the system was currently augmenting its normal circulation of filtered and purified outside air with an "additional surplus" from a thousand-pound gas bottle rigged into the system in a chamber down the hall.

She was down that corridor in a moment.

In the next room, she found the bottle--it was obvious enough, being huge--and she screwed the regulator nozzle tight to cap off its flow. A moment after that, she was back in the control room again, stumbling on hypoxic, wiry legs.

Her fingers felt so thick and clumsy that she wasn't sure she could tap accurately on anything as minute as computer keys; but she managed it, one button at a time--while tiny burps of rebellious expiration escaped her lips, demanding forbidden quid pro quo. Her head pounded more and more relentlessly. Her eyes turned veritably aflame in her skull, and all was becoming dim.

Finally, she hit **ENTER**, and the fresh air from outside began to flow anew, pushing all of the bad air out through the exhaust collectors whose fans disbursed it harmlessly across the desert. She found herself gradually regaining clarity a few moments later, sucking air directly from an input shaft jutting in from a corner.

She was there, heaving still, when she realized she was still wearing her sunglasses.

No wonder things had gotten so dim.

She laughed and stuffed the wretched things into a pocket.

* * *

Erwin Dzwinkowski had arrived just after Sergeant Washington and Adams Four-Three and -Six-One. The four squad cars had been audible, howling like banshees, long before they finally came screeching to their halt in reckless disarray before the queerly dark office building and its offending, well-lit parking garage. Their eerie cherry-lights lit up the empty business district with an unaccustomed fuss, and cops were emerging from them like hornets from nests, whirring in anger. With his partner, Cahill, Dzwinkowski performed the obligatory hasty assessment; but when he, too, saw nothing noteworthy, he settled with the others and joined their conversation behind the parked police cars.

"...no word from Adam Twenty or Twenty-One," continued Sergeant Washington. "The perimeter's totally boxed-in now, and there's a couple of units checking the place out."

"What happened?" asked Dzwinkowski, clearly annoying a few of the others for being the late-comer, but earning himself a begrudging reply never the less.

"McIntyre and Portersmith are both out of contact," Officer Bentley said.

"They down?" asked Dzwinkowski.

"They're missing," Bentley said. "No signs yet. Last word they were checking out a couple of suspects casing that building there. No sign of anybody yet."

"Then they're still here," Dzwinkowski said.

"Unknown," Bentley replied.

But a few moments later erased all doubts.

First a cop leaned out from a patrol car, his radio handmic still gripped, shouting, "Hey, Sergeant! They found McIntyre's badge!"

Then Dzwinkowski turned his sharp eyes down into the parking garage where he could make out three cops checking out the glass elevator, one kneeling and holding up what must have been Macky's badge. Dzwinkowski was about to suggest that perhaps the perps took the cops inside and up the elevator, but at that moment the entire elevator exploded, killing everyone down there and nearly deafening Dzwinkowski, even from across the street.

* * *

"_Damn, Lara!_" Jacob Corbin's disembodied voice said, having managed to find to a speaker to tap into, even in the ventilation control room. "_That was close to eight minutes you were holding your breath! I don't know who to root for anymore, you or me!_"

"I'm ready for that face-to-face talk anytime now, Jake," Lara managed to sneer, though still exhausted from her long hypoxia. She was still on her knees, inhaling deeply from her corner air shaft.

"_We may have to hold off on that one for awhile_," Jake admitted.

"That's what I figured," Lara replied. "The game's a bit more even now, isn't it? No more poison gas for you, poor dear. What's next, Jake? Mad dogs? Poison darts?"

"_I figure it's your move this time_," Jake replied.

"Of course it is," Lara said.

"_While you're recovering_," Jake said. "_I have someone here who needs to talk with you_."

Lara was almost too tired to care, but when she heard the first tone of his voice, she was on her feet and invigorated.

"_My precious Lara_," it said.

"Grandpapa!" Lara shouted. "Grandpapa!"

"_You must listen to me now_," the old man said, "_there will not be another time_."

"Grandpapa!" Lara shouted again, more emphatically.

"_He can't hear you, Lara_," Corbin said, while David Croft continued:

"_My little baby_," he murmured. "_I knew you would come. I must tell you all of these things now, because there will be no other time. Not for me. It's all arranged, you see. So you must give an old man his absolution_."

"Where is he, Jake?" Lara demanded, "where?"

"_You know I can't tell you that_," Jake said, he and she both talking over him. "_Just listen to him_."

"I'll rip this place apart until I find him!" she shrieked, storming out into the main corridor.

"_I knew you would come to me_," the old man continued, "_dressed the way you are tonight, bearing weapons rather than pearls, poised to fight me rather than to honor me with a dance. You must understand, I always knew you would come, your face hard with all this unflattering anger. I always knew, one day._"

The voice followed her wherever she went, the PA piping it though every nick and cranny of the complex.

"_So many lies, you see. So many, I can't even count them anymore. But I do love you, you must know that. I only did it for you. Everything, all I did, all for you. For the family. You were our beautiful, precious little child, and they would have taken you away. I couldn't let them do that. So I made you my own granddaughter, my adopted heir--it was the least I could do after all I taken from you, so wrongly_."

She marched down the corridor, her weapons drawn, intruding into every chamber along the hall, kicking down every door. It was all empty; recently inhabited, but vacant.

They were the personnel quarters. Simple apartments. Dorms, really. A bed, some decorations on the walls, a small bathroom. Some rooms were slightly larger than others, but otherwise they were identical. Somewhere on this level was Rainy's room, she supposed; but her curiosity wasn't enough to quell her anger. Not enough to slow her search.

"_There are so many things, Lara, so many stories that ought be told. This double-life of mine must seem very troubling to you right now. I don't know what you learned in Peru over the last few days. What Mister Corbin has told me makes it seem as though you learned everything about my life's work, all of my secrets. He tells me that you are now coming after me. To get your revenge for all that's happened in your life. He tells me that you speak my name now with hatred on your breath. That you wish only to destroy everything I've built_."

Indeed it seemed she did. She was storming through this complex of his and throwing over everything in her path.

"_I don't know whether I believe him or not. Lara, You must know that I've never anything but loved you. There was never anything that you could do that would make me disapprove of you. I never wanted anything but the best for you--from the first hour I held you in my arms. So I must tell you everything_."

At the end of the long corridor of rooms was an open chamber, with a catwalk leading up to a large overhanging platform. Although everywhere else was illumined with ordinary phosphorescent light, Lara could see some enormous additional lightsource on the upper platform, out of direct sight. The lower level around her was a was gymnasium; with utility closets, dressing rooms, sports offices, and shelves of basketballs, footballs, and other equipment.

"_You are not the child of my nephew, Eliot. Your mother indeed is dead, but she also was not the woman whose photograph adorns your bed room dresser. This was a fiction, invented by Mister Corbin and his many underground resources. Your truth, Lara, is darker_."

Lara systematically searched the gym.

"_We possess an alien spacecraft, Lara. It came to us long ago, and you were among its precious contents. I know this must shock you greatly, but you are not of this human race among whom you have been reared. You look like us, and have lived like us, and we have taught you the best we could, but your home--your true home--lies somewhere out there among the stars. Does this make any sense to you?_"

Finding nothing in the gymnasium, Lara marched up the catwalk stairs.

The upper platform was covered with tables and sofas and more than a few large television sets. There was a well-stocked bar, and even a dance floor. The bright light up there was even brighter in direct sight, and she quickly realized why. On the farthest wall, there was what looked like a great twenty-by-fifteen foot window. It seemed to open out into some greatly illuminated expanse below. When she approached, she realized that when the elevator said **BOTTOM**, it meant 'hanger': Through the window, she could see the home of her mother's spaceship, the wife-ship of Qawalapeque, the UFO Rainy called the 'Tomb Raider'. The hanger around it was a vast space, mostly an empty floor; but it had sufficient equipment and storage materials scattered about it to give it a busy and productive appearance, even if now vacant. The Tomb Raider, almost mystically, occupied its farthest quarter.

"_I wanted for so many years to tell you your great secret; to alleviate the burden of your heart. I could see your pain, your quest. It seemed as though you never truly felt at home here, and I know that somewhere in your heart you must have sensed why. I am greatly sorry for that. But please understand, if I were to reveal to anyone, especially to you and your inquisitive, skeptical mind, that you were not of this Earth, you would have caused yourself to be noticed, however inadvertently, and I could never allow that_."

The hanger was huge. It must have possessed at least as much floor space as all of the quarters lying adjacent to it. In fact, when Lara unconsciously began to run the specs through her mind, it became suddenly clear to her that these dimensions were perfectly impossible. The elevator had surely not descended so far beneath the mountain's skirts to as to accommodate so vast a complex. It would jut out into the suburban streets at the foot of the hill. What she was seeing was.…

"_It was only with the most extreme reluctance that I could convince Mister Corbin to assist me in keeping your existence secret. It was only with the greatest of efforts that we managed to convince his nefarious superiors in that American security organization of his that there had been no other corporal spoils to be had than the body of your mother_."

Yes, what she was seeing was mere illusion. When she looked closely enough, she could she the pixels of the screen. This great window was a great fraud! A great façade! A gigantic video screen! But an astounding one. She imagined what else they might have opened their 'window' to. Grand mountain vistas? Sunsets on the beach? Whatever the residents fancied. They could have made it seem like they were zipping through an outerspace star field, had they so desired. It was a nice touch. It made her wonder, though, where all these people were. The other Tomb Raiders. She dreaded to think of it.

"_You were the greatest miracle of my life. Out of such death and struggle, such a perfect little creature was born! But they would have taken you away, too. They would never have let you grow into the woman you have made me so proud to see. They might not have let you live at all_."

But she could hardly remain to admire the view. There were duties to perform, least of them on this level, apparently. She had nearly searched the whole place. She had to get the next level. Although she had no reason to be certain that her grandfather was even in this secret complex--or even in the city--it was her hunch that Corbin wouldn't let him travel very far. Not while his plan was still in motion. He wouldn't risk it. So, David Croft was here, somewhere. Probably not above--with access to telephones and servants and chauffeured limousines. Probably down here, somewhere. Pacified and contained.

And she would soon discover just how dreadfully pacified he was.

"_And see, this is why I must go now: I am an old man. My life, such as it has been, no longer has any value to anyone anymore. All that I have built will soon be destroyed--Mister Corbin has seen to that, and he assures me that you have come to assist him to do the same, and I cannot begrudge you, and I do not blame you, dearest Lara. It is thus only in my death that there can be any more good to come of me. I have lost my struggle. Mister Corbin will have this Project, though God only knows what he will do with it once he has it_."

Before she could move on, before she could return to the elevator shaft and descend to the OFFICES level below, there was one last chamber to search. Next to the well-stocked bar, there was a small out-of-the-way chamber which she almost hadn't noticed. She marched to the door and found it locked. She kicked it down and peered in for a quick look when her heart leapt as though out from her chest.

"Grandpapa!"

"_But my surrender was not without its conditions: In return for my cooperation, Mister Corbin has given me his solemn oath that he will neither take from you your life nor your liberty. He will keep our secret just as I have struggled to do all of these years_."

He was slumped over the desk in the middle of the room. Behind him was a wall composed of four fifty-inch television monitors, each separately showing images of his face. His face before he had died.

"_He agreed to allow me to create this recording, and to let me publish a new will and testament that will retrieve your name and my assets from the disaster we will jointly make of my corporation_."

Lara jumped to him and raised his face from the desk, finding his eyes closed and his body stiff. His skin was still warm, but he had no pulse; and his limbs were livid.

Her heart, once swollen in rage, melted in grief.

"_Afterward, you will be free to do with my name and my assets as you desire. You will be my sole heir. But you must keep our secret, Lara. This world is not ready for our great and terrible truth. They are not ready to know that they are not alone. That is my only condition of my Will to you: That you keep your own secret, and that you stay free. Good bye, my precious Lara. Live long. And live well_."

The recording ended, and the screen became dull gray.

"No, Grandfather," Lara murmured, regretfully. "No."

"_Do you remember when I used to carry you on my shoulders, Lara?_" asked Corbin's voice.

His face had appeared in wretched quadruplicate upon the same gray surfaces that had just been washed clean of her grandfather. But Lara couldn't quite be bothered with him just yet. She held her grandfather's head in her hands instead, allowing herself a moment to shed a few tears.

"_You used to say, _'_don't ever put me down_'," Corbin said. "_And you grew up so fast! I couldn't keep up with you. You got too big to pick up. And, long before you grew out of wanting me to, I just couldn't lift you up anymore. Do you remember that?_"

And Lara realized there were three other things on the desk besides her grandfather's slumped form. The first was an empty shot glass. The second was a crayon drawing: A vintage Lara Croft, from her early, early childhood. It portrayed three people, her finest impressionist stick-figures: A man with gray hair, another man with black, and little girl with yellow--standing between them, and holding both of their hands.

"I remember, Uncle Jake," Lara said.

"_I always felt ashamed for that, you know?_" Jake said. "_Like, I don't know, maybe I should have gone to the gym or something_."

And she saw the third thing that was next to her grandfather: An empty bottle of pills.

"_You'll always be that little girl to me, Lara_," Jake said, obliviously. "_Always_."

"What have you done, Jake?" Lara asked, ready now to wipe away her tears.

"_I never wanted it to come to this_," Jake said. "_You have to believe me. We were all supposed to be on the same side!_"

"The same side of what, Uncle Jake?" she demanded.

Instead of answering, he seemed to sober himself, regaining his moment's lost composure.

"_I never lied to you, Lara_," he said, "_not even in Peru. You never asked me what was going on. I would have told you. We're family. Now, I don't know if you believe me about that or not. It really doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is that I don't want you to be my enemy. I want you to be my friend_."

"I don't see how that's possible," Lara said.

"_Then we'll play it your way_," he conceded. "_Face to face. Me and you. No tricks. Just give me my chance to explain my side_."

"Alright, Uncle Jake," Lara said, turning the empty bottle of suicide pills in her hand. "No tricks."

"_Good_," Corbin said, sighing with relief. "_You'll find me in the hanger below. Just get on the elevator and hit _'_Bottom_'."

And Lara complied. But her guns were drawn.

* * *

Kimble didn't need to look at Vallesky's security camera taps to see that there were police surrounding the building. He could see them from the window. He also he didn't need to listen to the police scanner that Gladstone had brought to know that something had just exploded in the basement. He could feel the explosion through the floor, even forty-three stories up.

"Jesus, Lieutenant," said Vallesky.

"But are they after us?" demanded Kimble, announcing the question to whole group. His nine men stammered from their grumbling and stewing to turn their faces his way. He could see their blank expressions even in the dim light of the moon-lit office in which they had set up their ops base. He reiterated his question: "Have they said anything yet about the forty-second floor?"

Like a virus passing between them, they began shaking their heads contagiously; first one of the men, and then two of them, and then the rest--until they all agreed by default.

"Then we won't worry," Kimble said.

"But, sir," said Vallesky, "come on. What are the chances? Coincidence..?"

"We'll accelerate the program, just to be sure," Kimble said. "Skip the rest. We'll use our real voices, and we'll just patch in from here. Get going on the Package. Percy, Ortiz."

"Yes, sir," his two key-men acknowledged simultaneously, marching out toward the next room.

"Vallesky," Kimble continued. "Get me the boss."

* * *

Corbin at least gave Lara the courtesy of pressing her own buttons this time, and the elevator trip was short and swift: Down from the QUARTERS level, sliding past the OFFICES level, and finally settling--fairly climactically, Lara felt--upon the BOTTOM; where it opened its fateful doors.

Lara had been correct in her presumption that the hanger she had viewed through their rather impressive twenty-foot video window was indeed the 'bottom'. There was a certain finality to the feeling of the hanger's floor beneath her feet. It was solid metal rather than the relatively soft concrete which paved the floors above. It had a quality that somehow flattered the hanger's vast space, its brilliant light, and the cold feeling which found her and stayed with her while she viewed that undisguised and utterly awe-inspiring UFO which occupied the entire far side of the room. Everything contributed to the sense that, indeed, she had arrived at the end of the line. She would honor their agreement, though--no tricks.

So she had her twin Thunderers drawn right from the start.

"Lara," groaned Corbin, still in his party tuxedo. He was standing in the middle of the hanger, and seemed dwarfed before the spaceship. "We're here to talk! Put those away!"

"I hope you'll understand when I explain that my patience runs rather thin these days," Lara said.

She had exited the elevator only slowly, and had found herself pacing a predator's slow circle about her uncle, giving him less than fifteen feet of space. Perhaps unconsciously, Corbin slowly raised his hands above his head. He remained this way throughout their conversation.

Lara snapped at him, "Whatever you wanted to say to me, I suggest you say it now. And when you're finished, I'll decide whether or not to blow holes through your skull."

"Lara!" Corbin groaned, "Don't you understand even yet? If I'd wanted you dead, you would be dead! I brought you here for a reason!"

"You 'brought' me?" she gasped with spiteful incredulity. "You tried to kill me, Uncle, multiple times! That's why I'm here now! Only, I have the guns this time, don't I?"

"I owe you everything, Lara," Corbin said, sighing and shrugging; apparently quite genuine in his affections. "I only wanted you to know that. But if that's the way you want it, have it your way. Down to business then."

He paused as though to gather his thoughts.

"I never wanted any of this, Lara," he said. "I never wanted to see any of those native people hurt, or any of my own researchers, for that matter. I certainly never wanted to see you or your grandfather hurt."

"Then why the killing?" she demanded.

"It's complicated," Corbin said.

"Your life depends on it," she warned him.

"So it does," Corbin replied--rather lightly, considering. "There are some things in this world, Lara, that are bigger than individual people. Even though, perhaps, one person might have thought of it, and maybe one or another put it into motion, after it gets started, things like these take on lives of their own. After that, Lara, no one can stop it. Not me, not you, and not your grandfather--no matter how bad he tried."

"You aren't winning my heart," Lara said.

"Lara," Corbin said, "you either ride the bull, or the bull rides you. Those are the rules. Now, I want you to think back. A couple of years back. We had a conversation. A very heady one."

"We've had lots of those," Lara said. "None I thought would be like this."

"It wasn't," Corbin conceded. "But it involved this. You see, Lara, really, everything, all of this, it was all your idea."

"My idea!" she gasped. The notion was, of course, _incredibly _offensive.

"Your idea!" he assured her. "My doing, maybe. Maybe my mistake, who knows. But you, you were the inspiration. You were the voice that started the dreamer dreaming. By now you probably know that I only moonlighted for your grandfather, right? My real work is for the United States' National Security Agency. The NSA."

"I know," said Lara.

He clearly picked up the snideness in her tone.

"Now, remember, I never lied to you!" he insisted. "All my work for your grandfather was perfectly legitimate! Our trust, our family, that was real to me. But, I did work for the NSA first. And they were the ones who assigned me my job with Croft Industries. Of course, because of that--" and he gestured at the Tomb Raider. He was facing it then, having rotated himself along with Lara's slow circumambulation. "I'm sure you must understand why they had to send someone like me, and why I could never tell you." Seeing that she remained unresponsive to his attempts to mollify her, however, he continued undaunted. He said, "But for whatever reason I came, to me, this was always my _real _family and my _real _home. To me, you are my family, Lara."

Lara was unimpressed, but it didn't seem to bother him.

"Well, anyway," he said, "I was an NSA intelligence analyst. And, even though I did overseas operations work for your grandfather, the NSA never stopped sending me reports and things. I'd get big stacks of reports, sometimes. From all over the world: CIA, Mossad, British Intelligence, others. Do you have any idea what it's like--can you imagine? Getting a new stack of reports like that, every day, a stack this thick"--he indicated a depth a solid foot high-- "full of photos, and stories, and data detailing the horrors that man does to man out there in that God-awful world, Lara? I used to get a new batch of this hell every week or so, and I had to examine it all, in every gruesome detail, every day. It was enough to twist your heart clean out of your chest. And do you know what I found out through all of that, Lara? You should, because you clued me in. All that hell comes down to one problem--one. You get that problem out of the way, and the rest of the problems start to solve themselves. Do you remember now, Lara? Do remember the conversation I'm talking about?"

Lara might have recalled, but she waited anyway.

"Lara," Corbin continued, "I'm talking about dictators. I'm talking about despots and fanatics and charismatic wackos running down the world until it's nothing but one big terror-infested ghetto. I'm talking about people bent on holding onto their little empires no matter the cost. No matter the human lives, or just basic human decency. Are you starting to remember the talk I mean, now?"

His words--his passion--indeed had triggered a certain sense of recollection in her.

"Yes," she said, "I think so. That is, you never mentioned any evidence, but I can clearly recall a day when you seemed upset. Just like you seem now. About 'the evil that men do'."

"Yes, exactly!" Corbin replied. "Now, do you remember what you said? What you told me back then?"

"Something about short-sightedness, I think," Lara replied, trying to recall. She had thought nothing of this conversation when it had happened. It had been about three years ago. Corbin had been flying her to Australia for a clam-diving competition, of all things. The two had been simply been passing the time--or so she had thought then. "Um, 'working against their own interests', wasn't it?"

"Yes!" Corbin exclaimed.

"'Selfishness'," continued Lara, "yes, that was it. 'Selfish people'."

"Right," said Corbin, grinning widely. "Right! And you said 'Democracy can't be about borders.' If you've got ten-million people starving on the other side of an imaginary line, you've still got ten-million people starving! Isn't that what you said?"

"Well, yes," she said, "I suppose. But I don't understand--"

"That was an epiphany for me!" Corbin said.

"I don't understand," Lara replied.

"Your family--our family," Corbin corrected himself, "have always been crusaders, haven't we Lara? Haven't we always gone well out of our way to do what's best for the little people, the people we serve?"

"I suppose," Lara replied.

"Isn't that why David Croft chose his start-ups in all the places he did?" Corbin said, "even knowing what a hit he'd take in the first few years?"

"Yes," Lara said, "and you usually disagreed with him."

"And I was wrong!" Corbin chanted, plaintively. "He was right! He made me a believer! You made me a believer! You _can_ make a difference! You _can _help people! You can get around the little dictators and the petty governments and do something worthwhile."

"Yes, of course," Lara said, surprised at Corbin's seeming amazement. "He was a noble man!"

"Of course he was," Corbin said, now sounding rather condescending. "But he didn't go far enough. Did he? I mean, he found ways to get around the obstacles, sure enough; but what did he ever do to bring down the walls? To ring the bells of freedom?"

Lara didn't like this latter criticism. She didn't like where this was going at all.

* * *

In all actuality, Abel didn't like heights. He hated them, in point of fact. And yet, when assignments were being dealt, he found himself compulsively raising his hand for roof-top sentry. He supposed it happened for a number of reasons: One: he always liked challenging his fears, even when they once had caused him to wet himself in Airborne school; and, Two: because it would bring him altogether that much closer to being _gone_ when this whole operation hits critical. And the value of that second reason simply couldn't be underestimated. Their plan was absolutely mad, and no matter the promises Mr. Corbin had made to them, it seemed perfectly clear to Abel that the better possibility was that none of them--Corbin included --was going to see the end of this night with their skins intact.

Still, if anyone were going to make it, it would only be if everyone were there, on the roof, at the pickup point, right on time, and not a second later. That meant for Abel, pretty obviously, that he didn't, under any circumstances, want to wind up being that one dumbass below decks holding up the works while the others wait, biting their nails. Surely, there was going to be someone who causes this to happen, but this time, by God, it was not going to be _him_. Not _his _fault. Anxiety like that tends put a body well past such trivial fears as heights. It also puts ones senses on heightened alert. Alert enough to pick up even the slightest whisper of a wind when it comes tickling about the threshold of perception.

At first, Abel thought the whole last-second nightmare had already started and that no one had alerted him--and this was Mr. Corbin streaking in. By the time he finished checking his radio to be sure it was, indeed, still functioning, and that he had missed no critical messages, he had already come to the conclusion that it, indeed, was not Mr. Corbin--although what it actually was was no less unexpected.

Since he already had the radio in hand, he called it in:

"Boomstick, this is Specter," he said. "Got a bogy incoming."

"_What?_" gasped Kimble angrily from the small speaker. "_Take cover! We aren't here!_"

"Negative, Boomstick," said Abel. "It ain't civilian. It's one of ours."

And, just then, the hovering, near-silent and pitch-black silhouette of one of their signature stellargetic stealth-choppers swooped elegantly above the rim of the roof, as though about to hover and land. In the pilot seat, Abel could see Herc Morigushi piloting. Last he'd heard, Morigushi was still supposed to be in South America somewhere. It was strange to see him, especially right now; but it was, as always, refreshing to see a friendly face--especially under circumstances such as these.

"Hey!" Abel called out, always amazed at how little one needed raise one's voice to be heard over a stealth-chopper's engine. Had this been an ordinary Blackhawk, such a conversation would have been impossible. "What's up?"

"Delivery!" shouted back Morigushi from the window.

"Nothing's scheduled!" Abel cried. "We got everything!"

"Not quite!" said Morigushi, as his crew chief slid open the side doors.

There were a pair of duffel bags on the chopper floor, and the crew chief shoved them out with his feet. They hit the roof near Abel with a dull thud. Whatever was in them, they were heavy.

"What's this?" Abel cried out.

"Gotta go!" shouted back the pilot, and his chopper banked and vanished from sight.

"_What's going on up there?_" asked Kimble from the radio speaker.

"Delivery," replied Abel. "Mr. Morigushi."

"_Oh?_" replied Kimble. "_What is it?_"

"A pair of bags," Abel replied, stooping to examine them.

"_Of what?_"

Abel unfastened one of their simple clothespin-like fasteners and revealed its insides.

"Good God!" Abel gasped into the pickup, "about all the fucking C4 I've ever fucking seen!"

"_What the fuck'll we need that shit for?_" groaned Kimble. "_Look, I'll send someone up after them in a minute. You just keep your eyes open up there, make sure nobody saw the drop. There's an awful lot of fucking cops downstairs. Oh, God! You just gotta trust fucking Jake Corbin to pull some shit like that at a time like this!_"

* * *

In the hanger, Lara had stopped circling Corbin; but, somehow, as though by magnetism, Corbin himself had kept her walking--perfectly unconsciously. He rotated slowly, and she arched around. She was following him now, and he was leading her.

"Lara," continued Corbin, "The United States, Britain--the whole First World: We've got something, don't we? Don't we have the answer? And what's in the way? We could have a whole free world--what's in the way? A couple petty dictators? A few piddly corrupt governments? The masses want their freedom. Isn't that the very voice of democracy?"

Lara's heart was beating hard, but she fought not to let it show.

"All my life," Corbin said, "I've watched the United States give its best efforts to help these people. To extend aid to freedom movements, or send in troops to stamp out the communist pollution, or drive out the fundamentalist wackos. But they've always failed. Do you know why?"

"No," Lara replied.

"Two reasons:" Corbin explained. "Military might, and national will. And that second one's the most important, Lara. Because we could have won Viet Nam. We could have taken North Korea. We could have put the entire Spanish American continent in good order! But we didn't. And we won't. Do you know why? National will! That's the problem with a people as successful as the First World: How complacent we get. How comfortable. We never see anything until its breathing right down our backs. Even with the bad guys on the run--Somalia, Cuba, El Salvador--we didn't get the job done because our politicians, our people, couldn't see how it effected them personally. We're brothers and sisters across the globe, aren't we? Equal voices. Why can't we join hands and hang on? That's how it ought to be, isn't it? We're like their big brother and their big sisters. How can we just stand by and let all this go on as though we're somehow not involved? I say its time to show our people just how the rest of the world effects them. To show them just _exactly _how it effects them."

* * *

"_Percy, Ortiz, status?_" said the Kimble's voice in their ears.

"About ready," said Ortiz, zipping open the final protective cover.

They had carried it in a light, plastic case--barely larger than a suitcase. It had seemed hardly the security they should have wanted, and certainly provided nothing like the physical protection they should have demanded. But what the case lacked in external protections, it more than made up for in internal ones. It had not only the layers of foam and gel and bubble-plastic which would be the least of what it should have, but it also had locked layers of virtually indestructible canvas sheathing that needed to be unfastened and removed before the device could even be raised, let alone set upon its stand and operated.

Once in place, Ortiz and Percy paused a moment in some imprecise but tacit ceremony of awe. Then Ortiz turned to Percy and blinked twice, breathing heavily.

"You ready?" asked Ortiz.

"Sure," said Percy, though he was clearly uncertain.

But the two inserted their keys in into their proper slots and paused--as though they almost didn't expect it when the LED panel then came to life, before they had even turned the keys. What the screen said was actually in Chinese, but both men knew what it meant.

"Okay?" said Percy, his fingers sweating on his key, holding it in the keyhole; his shaking eyes locked on Ortiz's, whose were doing just the same. "Ready?"

"One, Two, Three," said Ortiz, and, "Go!"

And the two turned their keys at once and the rest of the LED panel came to life, revealing the image of a digital keypad that hadn't existed on the plastic screen at all until they had brought the device fully on-line.

"Okay," said Percy, breathing heavily. "We need a time."

"Boomstick?" asked Ortiz.

"_Corbin said make it fifteen minutes_," replied Kimble. "_Give me a mark_."

He hesitated, but Percy ultimately went through with it. He typed in the numbers, calling out "Mark!" with the last button, **COMMIT**.

The two men stood in aghast as the LED began to count it down:

**15:00, 14:59, 14:58, 14:57**.…

* * *

Corbin said, "What would you guess would happen if a major American city were completely obliterated off the face of the Earth by a terrorist's nuclear bomb, supplied courtesy a major despotic government?"

Lara was finally beginning to understand. She hadn't guessed the half of this. Not the half.

"After that," said Corbin, smiling--somehow _smiling _at the thought, "after that, wouldn't you imagine that the free world would have to have the will to do something? Huh? To do something lasting? We'd launch a campaign the likes of which the world has never seen! A grand crusade! We'd put every sinew of our being into it! And we'd make the world free."

"Well, you'd have a bloody war on your hands, that's for sure," hissed Lara, disgusted.

"No, no, Lara," Corbin madly assured her, "there won't be any war at all!"

Lara was speechless.

"Don't you see?" Corbin said. "That was my whole point! What you gave to me!"

He paused, but she didn't follow. He sighed and tried again.

"It's the dictators and fanatics that are the problem here," Corbin said, "Not the people. Not even the armies. So as long as their evil leaders exist, so long as their governments exist, no campaign will go anywhere without massive, bloody resistance. So, Lara, that's the genius of it! That's your genius. We'll get rid of the dictators and the governments _first_. With that ship, my UFO, I'll have more firepower than an aircraft carrier. I'll be able to travel at nearly the speed of light. And, I'll be virtually invulnerable to any kind of counter-attack, conventional, chemical, or nuclear. Lara, I could get rid of every despotic government in the world _overnight_."

It took Lara a flabbergasted second to realize her madman uncle was being literal.

"One horrible, terrible, night," he said, "and then it's all over. Peace, Lara. Not in a decade, not in a hundred years, but peace right now--peace _tomorrow_."

* * *

"Are we set?" Kimble asked.

"Ready now, chief," replied Dickins, leaning over the mess of four different electronics kits, satellite dish control systems, TV broadcast units, and the telecommunications control terminal which he had just finished using to hack his way into the bandwidth of four major television broadcast networks. Dickins held his headphones to one ear, listening intently for the signs and signals which would be key to the game of staying online when the rest of the world wants to cut you off. "Gimme a count."

"Three, two," counted Richards, the extempore director for their show. He stood behind the camera, counting it off at first on his fingers and then pointing the 'one' at Kimble, saying: "Go!"

And Dickins switched the transmission over, whispering, "You're on!"

Behind Kimble was the dull neon glow of an L.A. skyline whose cityscape was not quite in view beneath the bottom of the window pane. This was Croft International's CEO's office's huge bay window, and Kimble stood cast in black silhouette before it. On the video monitor, as on very virtually TV across L.A. and across the nation, he was a black clad and face-masked figure whose voice was garbled by nothing more than a plain commercial reverb.

"_Attention American nation_," he said, speaking his prepared remarks mechanically, "_we are the People's Justice Army. In protest of your exploitation and violence against the people of poor countries everywhere, we have taken over a building in one of your major cities. In ten minutes, you will learn the price of your capitalist greed. Do not try to stop us, it is too late. Pray to God to forgive you. This is only a taste_."

* * *

"Jesus Lord," Lara gasped. "Then you don't mean to ransom L.A., you mean to wipe it clean off the face of the Earth!"

Corbin frowned and furrowed his brow.

He looked at her, bit his lip thoughtfully, and continued.

"Last year, my Operations Force commandeered three strategic nuclear weapons," he explained. "We took one from China, two from Russia. No one overseas knows they're gone--we've made sure of that. We've double-checked, over-seen the counter-espionage--we've made sure. So, when it happens, no government will claim any knowledge of this whatever. But then, when our people chase the forensics down in the blast zone, the evidence they're going to find will say that China's ruling oligarchy had direct control over theirs, and that Russia's two were sold by renegade bureaucrats to Iran and North Korea."

"God, why?" demanded Lara, "why do this?"

"Because," said Corbin. "Clearing the path to democracy and order is easy if all there is to worry about are the little guys. We've been playing cat-and-mouse with China and Iran for decades! I say, 'Enough, already!' We implicate them for the destruction of Los Angeles itself, and then, we cripple their entire military and governmental infrastructure from within!"

Lara stared, her face twisted in aghast.

Corbin was doing his absolute best to win her enthusiasm, but it wasn't working--he _must_ have seen that.

* * *

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* * *

**

"I've been putting these pieces together for years," Corbin said. "Putting friendlies into position to move when the time is right. I selected them, I've trained them, armed them, given them detailed instructions and tactics. While the world reels from what's happened in L.A., they'll strike, assisted and supported directly by me and my UFO. By the time our freedom-fighting friends even get to their targets, they will find most of the work already done! In the name of the freedom-loving martyrs of Los Angeles, there will be a successful democratic revolution in China! Another one in North Korea! Bam! Boom! In El Salvador! Cuba! Everywhere! And this time, this time, when the freedom bells ring, the free world will be right behind them! If there's still fighting to do, no milly-mouthing around, the US will be there, and so will England and France and the rest! But there won't hardly be any fighting to do, Lara, because me and my UFO will have already done the worst for them."

Lara stared, but Corbin kept going.

"No moral ambiguities," he sang, "no hemming and hawing about national sovereignty; no United Nations' meddling! No! We'll rebuild their nations _for_ them, the right way this time, and we'll be right there funding them and trading with them and cheering them on! Come on, Lara! Think of it! Think of it!"

"I am thinking of it, Uncle," she said coldly, "and it horrifies me."

"Oh, please," he sighed, exasperated. "Where's your imagination?"

"I'm using it," she assured him. "What of the other two weapons, Jake? What of them?"

"Well," Corbin wavered, "just in case. You know."

"Just in case your play for 'national will' needs what?" she asked. "Another little boost?"

He didn't answer, and that told her that she was right.

"You can conquer the world, Uncle," she said. "You can replace government after government, over and over, again and again, for just as long as you like until you hit upon one amenable to your whims. Yes, you can do this. But Uncle, can you conquer the soul? You mistake a lack of democracy for a lack of national self-interest. These are worlds that these people live in, whom you wish to conquer. Some are broken, some are dysfunctional, yes; but they are their worlds. Your world is the two-party system, apple pie, and McDonalds' hamburgers; but theirs is not. Do you understand? You would have them die in their world and wake up into yours? Overnight? Forget your governments, Uncle, and your scheming, and your money. There are long-standing issues of culture, race, religion that you cannot solve this way. The people won't go along. And the killing will go on. Yes, Uncle. You'll not be the prophet of peace, you imbecile, but only the harbinger of chaos!"

But if Lara was angered, Corbin was enraged:

"Not chaos, Lara! _Justice!_ You're so smug in your privilege, talking about self-determination and political will? No, Lara, no! There's no 'different worlds' out there, you ridiculous, spoiled, little child! There's just a free world where people have dignity and rights and then there's the places behind the borders, out of the reach of law, out of reach of God, out of reach of everything! But not out of my reach! Not anymore! Not chaos, Lara! Justice. Justice."

"Justice?" scoffed Lara. "You don't even know the meaning of the word."

"Lara," Corbin seethed, "I'd hoped you'd see this differently. I thought--"

"You thought what?" snapped Lara. "That I would go along with your with your megalomaniacal insanity? That I would buy into your craven thirst for blood and vengeance against a world recalcitrant to your jingoistic narcissism? Is that what you thought? Even now your plan is failing, Uncle. I've seen to that. Yes, I already knew about your bomb. My being here--I'm only the distraction!"

"Lara, rethink this!" he pleaded. "Don't you realize I chose my men for their loyalty? I was never worried about Lieutenants Blaise and Cavanaugh! They know where their bread is buttered. You may think my bomb is in jeopardy, but it isn't, Lara. It's going to blow. Right on time. You've been had! You have no allies! They never switched sides! Right now, you are alone. You've been abandoned. Your plans to stop me are finished. But it doesn't have to end this way! Come with me. You'll be safe in the UFO. Join me, or you'll only have about twelve minutes left to regret the mistake. What do you say?"

"What do I say?" growled Lara, rushing forward to place her right barrel directly against his head. "What do I _say_, Uncle Jake? I say you put a stop to this madness now, or I'll blow a hole through your fucking skull!"

"Lara, look," he said, vainly attempting to placate her, obviously feeling the waves of aggression and anger that were coming off of her as though funneled through the pointed barrels of her pistols. "I don't want to kill you. If I did, I could have used nerve gas in the study. That was always an option, and it still is."

Lara continued to fume, "Is that why the staff quarters are empty, Uncle? Nerve gas? Is that what you used on everyone Rainy left behind?"

He ignored the question.

"I meant everything I said to you," he assured her. "I credit you with everything. If it weren't for you, there wouldn't have been a plan. If it weren't for you, I'd still have that idiot Spaulding in my way. Whatever else you think of me, this isn't a trick. I need you, and there are still ways for this to end as a partnership rather than a tragedy. The others won't question it if you go along willingly! There are things about this ship that we still don't understand. They know from your old diaries that you can read and write in the aliens' language. You can help us. There are physics problems we don't understand, too, and you're fully qualified for that, as well. Look, okay? Listen to me before you make this mistake and waste your life on nothing! This thing is happening. You can't stop it! You can be a valued part of the team, and have your hand in the shaping of things to come, or..." he paused thoughtfully and then pleaded: "In eleven minutes, this entire area's going to be a twenty-mile fireball. You won't survive. Not unless you join me."

"No."

"No?" he gasped back, incredulously. "Have I not made myself clear..?"

"Maybe I've not made myself clear," Lara said, cocking her pistols. "Now, for old time's sake, I'm willing to merely _arrest_ you, and let you live out your last years in stinking prison for what you've done to Bean Hedgebrook, the Ingu Indians, and my grandfather, and his corporation. But, if you prefer, I can just put you down now, right here, like the dog you are. Then I'll fly that ship to L.A. and neutralize your bomb with the very weapons you intended to use for your twisted little scheme. So, what do you say to that, 'Uncle'?"

"You won't do it."

"What?" scoffed Lara, "I'm quite serious!"

"I'm sure you are," he said. "But don't you feel that warm humming feeling in your hands? Through the metal of the pistol grip? I'm sure you feel it, you must."

Lara did feel it; but she wasn't about to reveal the fact to him.

"That's stellargetic resonance, Lara," Corbin said, seeing through her, as usual. "Oh, good, you do know what that means. And I can see that you can feel it, too. The ship is emitting a stellargetic resonance field, all throughout this complex. Of course, I amplified it before your arrival, for your benefit. We lost a dozen test-shooters before we realized this particular problem. X122 bullets emit bursts of stellargetic energy; so, if you fire one in an energy field that happens to have the wrong resonance phase, they'll interfere with each other. Constructively or destructively. Eventually we figured out how to attune for either effect. Right now it's in the destructive phase--go ahead and shoot me all you like: The beams are being canceled in the barrels. Go ahead, shoot. Shoot."

Lara pointed her left pistol at the ground and fired. Nothing happened.

She kept her other barrel at his head, but….

She understood now how useless it was.

"After I'm gone, of course," Corbin continued, "I'll recalibrate for constructive interference, and they'll actually explode if you try to fire them. Quite spectacularly, I'd imagine."

"You promised no tricks," Lara said sadly, holstering her useless weapons.

"Yes, well, I'm a liar," he replied, turning away from her and heading toward the waiting ship.

She leaped upon him from the rear and wrapped her arms around his throat in a fiendish headlock.

"You forget," she hissed, "I don't need weapons to kill!"

"No," said Corbin.

Even while choking, he remained inhumanly calm!

"I didn't forget that either," he said.

"If you want to live for another two seconds," Lara shrieked, "you'll do what I say!"

His chuckle, then, was so untroubled that Lara almost lost the strength of her grip from her sheer futility.

"No," he sang, "if you want to live, you'll look over your shoulder. Your right shoulder. _Now_."

It was only that moment that she realized she was hearing it. She had been hearing _something_ for the past several seconds, but it was Jake's calling her attention to it that way that made her pay sufficient heed. It was a sound, _clank-clank_, _clank-clank_, like metal rapping metal in sharp, speeding cacophony. If she hadn't known any better, she could have expected to see one of the giant spiders running towards her--wearing metal boots. And then--even though she _did _know better--she still could not shake the effect.

It wasn't a spider, but couldn't imagine how it might possibly have been worse. It was a muscular machine of servos and chrome, twelve feet tall. It had a heavily armored headless body bouncing on two heavily ballasted, reverse-jointed legs, with two arms so wracked with servo-powered support-strata it was as though it had the arms of some world champion body-builder who had had throbbing metal for biceps instead of flesh. It moved quickly and smoothly, like a living thing. It seemed to have all the sleek perfections of something natural and alive.

"We were testing the extremes of the technology we were learning," said Corbin in explanation, clearly admiring the thing the way a proud coach admires his star player. "I told them to impress me. They did. It's called the X12. Look hard, Lara. You won't get another clear look again. But I'd start running soon, if I were you. It's only got one instruction: Kill. Lara. Croft. There's only one way to stop it. This is it. Your last chance. Join me, Lara. Join me…."

At first she thought he must be bluffing. She had its master firmly in her hands! It wouldn't attack him too!

It had to stop!

But it didn't.

It raced directly over to them, and whipped its razor-edged claws directly through both of their bodies--

That is, where they would have been, had Lara not fallen away at just that second.

It was maddening that Corbin could stay so calm as it stomped between them with its gleaming steel robot legs and swung at them with its gleaming steel robot claws! In moments, Lara understood his warning to look hard while she could: Truly, it was moving so fast, she really wouldn't get another chance! Then, finally, as she rolled, leaped to her feet, and dashed mindlessly--just to get clear--she also understood his smug, complacent confidence in the thing. She could do no more than run and jump and dive and evade, evade, evade! And all the while, while its claws missed her by mere inches and sent sparks rippling from the steel deck at her fleet heels, Corbin was laughing himself back to his spaceship; laughing himself through his leisurely escape.

Laughing her all the way back to the elevator towards which she dashed, desperately fighting to survive.

* * *

Officer Dzwinkowski had to jump out of the way when Sergeant Washington came storming through the tight crowd of cops behind the blockade of squad cars in front of the Croft building. Washington seemed more excited than angry, and Dwzinkowski could easily understand why. The same thoughts were going through all of their heads. The word had just come down to the dragnet: There had been a terrorist message announcing an attack in a major city in the next few minutes! It had to be! What were the odds otherwise?

"Alright!" snapped Washington, "you've all heard! We don't know for sure, but there's no time to wait! By the clock, there's ten minutes left till they do whatever the hell it is they're going to do. That's not enough time to get SWAT or anybody here, so it's on us!"

The other twelve police officers, mostly patrolmen, understood what was being asked of them. They looked among each other, some looking for the confidence to assent, some looking for the confidence to object. Throughout it all, all their faces were grave and determined. In the end, Sergeant Washington's words won them over and they mostly nodded or grunted or else kept quiet and looked at the ground.

"I say," said Washington, "anything's better than standing here with our dicks in our hands. By God, I'm not going to stand here and let this happen and just do nothing! Come on, what do you say?"

The other cops shouted back in affirmation, "yeah!" and "let's go!" but there was definite trepidation still among them. Dzwinkowski found himself voicing it.

"What do you want us to do?" Dzwinkowski asked.

"We're going in there," said Washington, turning his voice triumphantly toward the others, rallying them behind him, "we're going in there!"

The cops--all of them--joined the shout this time; and, inspired, they ran to get their vests and their heavier weapons.

They arrayed themselves for the assault, two by two.

* * *

"You seeing that?" asked Cavanaugh.

"I see it," replied Doc.

Cavanaugh and Doc were in the main lobby of the Croft International L.A. building, and they could see the cops assembling and mounting their assault right through the glass. They themselves were ducked back in the well-lit marble-floored chamber, behind the corner that separated the open floor from the cove where the elevators were. Their two prisoners, the two cops whose curiosity would seem to have caused all of this commotion, were on the ground sitting between them, gagged and tied and terrified. This wasn't quite what anyone had bargained for, but all wasn't lost.

"Get 'em on the horn, man," Doc insisted, "let's get up! Time's getting short!"

"I am," replied Cavanaugh, switching his radio to appropriate channel and activating it. "Lost Lambs to Boomstick, Lost Lambs to Boomstick."

"'_Lost Lambs_'?" replied Kimble's voice. "_Is this Cavanaugh?_"

"And Doc," Cavanaugh said.

"_What the fuck?_" asked Kimble. "_Where are you guys?_"

"Right below you," said Doc, into his own radio.

"The cops are going to try to blast their way in," said Cavanaugh.

"_Fuck_," said Kimble. "_They weren't even supposed to know we were here!_"

"Don't worry," said Doc, "they won't get in."

"_Get your asses up here!_" said Kimble. "_You've got five minutes!_"

"On our way," replied Doc, as both troops killed their radios.

In the meantime, the cops outside had moved into position, making their play. They were going for a direct assault: feeling out the possibility of simply entering the lobby.

"They're going to try to come in here," said Cavanaugh.

"Let 'em," snapped Doc. "Let 'em try."

They grabbed their prisoners, loaded them on the elevator, and started up.

* * *

The elevator might as well have been made of cardboard.

The X12 ripped through the doors before they could even close, and it yanked them both back and threw them both recklessly over its shoulders as easily a child might throw an unwanted toy from its toychest while digging for something better. In a second, the thing was in the elevator with her, and what Lara had hoped might be a moment to catch her breath turned into yet another desperate bid to evade and escape.

She went up in a lunge. With a full-bodied high-jump, she shoved not only her hands, but her arms--up to her shoulders--through the ceiling escape hatch. Upon purchase, she yanked her body up and through, just too quickly for the thing to slice her in half along the way. In a second, she found herself atop the elevator in the shaft; and, in another second, its claws were ripping through the roof beneath her feet, missing her boots by inches and causing her to yelp and jump away in panic.

She landed against the shaft wall, and pulled herself onto the service ladder. She was then climbing as quickly as she could, woefully aware that the thing would rip its way free and could be on her far more quickly than she could even climb to the next closed floor, let alone open the doors. She felt a hypertense flutter of panic ripple through her as she flew up the rungs; but even as she heard the thing ripping clear and coming loose, she also heard the less expected, though gratefully welcome, sound of it ripping through the roof of the elevator and severing the gears and the cables suspending it. The elevator and the metal monster fell another full story--all the way to the bottom of the counter-sunk shaft.

Lara let out a celebratory gasp, but she didn't let it slow her. She acted fast, to take advantage. She knew she only had a few seconds to pull this off--that is, to pull off her C4-laden knapsack. Even as the monster stirred at the bottom of the shaft--disentangling itself of the elevator's crumpled metal as though it were cotton bed sheets--she came to the OFFICES floor and yanked hard on its door's emergency release lever. She rolled through the doorway and threw the knapsack down the shaft behind herself--just as she heard the sound of the thing rocketing its way up the shaft on turbine jumpjets! As the knapsack fell, she pointed her pistols, and she shot and shot--and the C4 exploded against the monster's shell! But it burst through the wall of smoke, still flying, and it arrived at her level. It ripped its claws into the elevator's doorway, yanking itself in after her.

Undamaged.

There was no stopping it.

This was how it was going to be: No breaks. No mercy.

And, as she threw herself through a last-ditch effort to roll clear, her eyes managed to catch just a flash of an LED message monitor which was embedded in the part of the things' torso which would be its head, if it could be thought to have one. The LED screen scrolled a message from right to left: **KILL LARA CROFT**.

And it came after her relentlessly, out of the shaft, chasing her up the hall!

The office level was the type of place she would have called a 'cubicle dungeon' under any other circumstance, being how it was a maze of claustrophobic computer cubicles. It was nothing to her but scrap-to-be at the moment, though. The X12 was ripping through its shoulder-high partitions and sending its tables and chairs and flimsy barriers flying in all directions. She leaped atop desks and rolled across debris and dived beneath fallen partitions. She did everything in her strength, power, and stamina to stay alive. This thing was not like any human or animal opponent at all. It was unrelenting and ceaseless. It was merciless and unhesitating. If killing her were owning her life, it already possessed the bill of sale; and all her efforts were nothing but vain attempts to buy it back in two or three second parcels.

And yet, for all her desperation, Lara couldn't help but notice the great video window on the farthest edge of the chamber. It was identical to the one on the Quarters level; and it also showed the hanger, where her megalomaniacal psychopath Uncle was causing the Tomb Raider to lift off and fly. But there was something else, too. Something strange about the hanger itself. But she hadn't the time to think of what it might be; because, at that very instant, the robot had reached around for her, knocking two or three heavy metal desks out of its path like Styrofoam fakes.

Lara leaped from a desktop and tip-toed a fast-motion ballet across the rim of a cubical barrier, risking rising above the rubbish only long enough to run clear. All around her now, and all around the entire office, everything was wrecked and upturned. It was wasteland of tossed junk--smashed computers, monitors, tables, desks, chairs, copying machines--even the innocent drinking fountain had been cruelly ripped from the wall and was bleeding pathetically. The ceiling tiles and their support beams were also rended and strewn. The entire Offices level was such a mess that it was no wonder that when the X12 finally got a drop on Lara, when it finally cornered and exhausted her, when it finally knocked the partition right out from under her toes, and she went flying out of control--

It was no wonder that the thing then lost sight of her in the debris.

It was in that moment, as she spilled over and behind a pile of wrecked and upturned desks, tables, white plastic monitors, and scrapped microchip boards, that Lara realized the fact about the hanger that she should have realized earlier. It had no exit. That is, she saw no means for the spaceship to travel to the outside! No hanger doors, no open caverns! It was the strangest thing!

But the realization was actually thrust upon her, almost unwillingly, in the irony of the moment. Even as she lay, waiting for death, cramped amongst the rubbish, the floor erupted nearby. The Tomb Raider wasn't escaping east, west, north, or south, but rather _straight through the ceiling of its berth_. It was rising, using its repulsor field to clear its way before it, ripping through the roof of the hanger and through the floor of the Offices level. She was watching it slowly passing by. It was a moment of irony and horror. She knew that she could _easily _pass through that repulsor field! Corbin, no doubt, thought he was completely safe inside. This was her chance to take the ship back from him--to take it _right back_--if there were only a way past the X12!

But the X12 was, by then, already looming over--and was just about to finish her, once and for all.

* * *

The television cameras had arrived. Just in time for the mayhem.

It never ceased to amaze Dzwinkowski how the reporters--those parasites--could arrive on the scene of a hostage situation more quickly than the SWAT team could. It almost made him wish they could equip those camera-slinging yo-yos with M14 Carbines and send them in to rescue Portersmith and McIntyre. It was well and good, Dzwinkowski thought, to sit there are talk about someone else's heroism; to sit there and film it at full zoom. It was totally another to do what he was doing, standing there by the building side, squeezing sweat into diamonds around the grip of his service shotgun, awaiting the call.

Dzwinkowski was afraid and angry, and he had a lot of pissy words to say to the reporters, but he held them all back when they made the mistake of setting up their cameras directly in front of the building. Not that Dzwinkowski knew it was a mistake just then, but when the call came for the first team to move up and try the doors, and the explosion ripped out of that lobby that buried the entire assemblage of squad cars in ash and shards of glass, killing almost everyone there--reporters, cops, _everyone_--leaving only Dzwinkowski and Cahill on their feet, he had a very different feeling about reporters. A very different feeling indeed.

* * *

**ERROR/ERROR/ERROR.**

**LOGIC ERROR 314.2:**

**TEXT FOLLOWS:**

**TARGET TRACKING ERROR AT TIMECODE 5/76/45632.1622.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**DISENGAGE PRIMARY LOGIC**

**PROTOCOL:**

**DE-SELECT ERROR-TARGET**

**DE-SELECT TARGET PROTOCOL**

**SELECT PRIMARY TARGET**

**EXECUTE TARGET PROTOCOL**

**PROTOCOL:**

**RE-ENGAGE PRIMARY LOGIC**

**PROTOCOL:**

**CONTINUE MISSION**

**EXECUTE.**

**EXECUTE.

* * *

**

The thing came over, and the thing kicked the rubbish away, and the thing opened its gaping hand full of claws, and the thing--

Stopped.

And turned away.

Lara didn't breathe. Lara didn't move.

And yet 'she' did.

Across the room, running for the ascending spaceship--which was at that moment ripping its way from the floor and into the ceiling--'Lara' was there. She looked just like her. She was dressed just like her. She ran just like her. Except, quite unlike her, she stopped before the rising UFO and just stood there like an idiot while the robot caught up to her and whipped its vicious claws at her, to rip her head clean from her body. Then, _truly _unlike the real Lara, this Lara didn't even dodge. She only stood there--and the claws passed through. The X12 then struck again to the same astounding effect; and it struck again, and again, while 'Lara' stood dumbly and the huge spaceship slowly passed by, scrolling up behind her.

All this time, the real Lara, on the ground, watched, as though in a dream.

And then, suddenly, fully commiserate with her dream-state, the other Lara spoke:

"Well," she shouted at herself, "what are you waiting for?"

And Lara understood! She leaped from behind the rubbish, and drew her right pistol.

Just then, the robot span; and, seeing two Lara's again, it paused again--but only for a second.

Lara could feel the hum in her weapon's barrel--so similar to how it felt down in the hanger, but--yes!--quite different! _Thank you so much, Uncle Jake! _she thought to herself; and, even as the X12 began to lurch into motion, Lara's pistol's hammer was cocked, and it was away! She _threw _it at the robot with all of her strength, and it exploded spectacularly!

The robot was only mildly damaged by the hit, but that was never the point!

Lara hit the deck--

The pistol's explosion knocked the robot back against the UFO's repulsor field, and **_BOOM!_**

Like a tin can--like a leaf in the wind--the mighty X12 was hurled from the UFO, head-over-heels; its metal claws clamping at empty air for the split-second it flew! It whipped past Lara so fast it nearly lifted her off the ground in the jetstream! But, in the end, it was the machine that had smashed itself half-through the gargantuan video window--its glass spilling everywhere--and it was the young woman who was able to stand again and still be whole.

And now, finally, the robot was out of the way!

Lara leaped over everything to get to the ship; but, no matter her luck and her speed, when she reached the hole in the floor, she knew that her chance was lost. The ship was too high. It was out of reach.

And that meant the quest--the entire quest--was done.

She'd lost.

"Damn!" she cried, hysterically!

But there was nothing more to do.

Nothing at all!

For all her talents, and all her will, she would just have to stand there and watch while the ship drifted up into the air and was gone. Quite plainly, Lara Croft wasn't Superman: She couldn't fly.

"Damn."

That was when the X12 grabbed her attention again.

It was struggling futilely to move; its joints abused and beaten, a few of its servos simply smashed.

But it wasn't the thing's spasms that caught her ear. It was something else entirely.

In a broken, synthesized voice it said:

"LAA-RAA. LAA-RAA CROFFFFT."

She approached it.

She came close enough to examine its wreckage more closely. Closely enough to see that its damage was no where near as catastrophic as she had formerly presumed. As she surveyed it, it then spoke to her again--in a much clearer voice this time. The words it said also scrolled across its LED screen. It said:

"**YOU ARE A DUMB BITCH**."

* * *

When the elevator arrived at the top of the Croft Building and opened up, Kimble was shocked and infuriated at what he saw.

"Hosta--" he shouted, "who the fuck are they?"

Cavanaugh and Doc were two of the top troops in the Operations Force--they had everyone's respect. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that Kimble didn't just shoot them both dead on the spot--them and their two goddamned hostages!

"What the fuck are you doing?" he insisted again.

The two men were marching into the chamber with their weapons buried in their hostages' backs, walking them into the area of operations abruptly--simply storming in amongst everyone. It was more than enough to fray Kimble's nerves to the bare, raw fringes. It was enough that the operation itself had to be cut so short, but why was Corbin making all of these unannounced changes? C4 explosives made almost no sense, but now hostages? What for? The team would be withdrawing by UFO (if that could be believed) in less than five minutes!

"There had better be a damned good explanation for this!" Kimble said.

"There is," said Doc.

"How many people you got up here?" asked Cavanaugh.

"Twelve," said Kimble, "Abel's on the roof. What the fuck is going on?"

But before Cavanaugh could answer, Vallesky called out, "Corbin on the line! ETA three minutes."

"Hey, give me that!" snapped Kimble at Vallesky, taking his handmic.

Meanwhile, Doc and Cavanaugh exchanged a nervous, cabalistic, glance.

"Yeah, Boss," said Kimble, "what's going on with all this shit? Why all these last-second changes?"

And, at the same time, the younger hostage, timidly, looked back at Doc and dared utter: "What's going on?"

Doc promptly whispered: "You're going to be heroes."

And Kimble caught it all.

He also noticed something else: Doc and Cav weren't using their MP5's. Their Project weapons, in fact, were slung. They were holding those men hostage with police service revolvers. It almost didn't make sense until he heard Corbin's voice ask it one more time:

"_What what you talking about, Kimble? I didn't order any changes!_"

His heart pounded--only a second to react!

"Get them!" he screamed, going for his weapon, but he was too slow.

The were all too slow.

One after another--

--**Bang! Bang!**--

--Doc had hoisted his hostage up by his collar, and was aiming his gun over his shoulder. He was killing the other Operations Force troops, one by one--

--**Bang, Bang, Bang!**--

--while Cavanaugh did the same.

--**Bang! Bang!**

And the machinegun shots that came back, so late, hit only the bodies of the two policemen, who jiggled and writhed in agony but stayed hoisted on their feet.

In seconds, Cavanaugh and Doc were the only ones left standing, and the eleven soldiers and the two hostage-cops were on the ground bleeding and dying. And Kimble, failed now in his mission, lay there; slowly fading. Wishing he could find the strength to reach the radio and make one last call.

One last call to poor, poor Abel on the roof--who wouldn't stand a chance all by himself.

* * *

**ERROR/ERROR/ERROR.**

**POWER DISRUPTION ERROR 17:**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 837**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 902**

**TEXT FOLLOWS:**

**MISSION DISRUPTION TIME TIMECODE 5/76/45751.490**

**CONTROL PROTOCOL DISRUPTION TIME TIMECODE 5/76/45751.490**

**PROTOCOL:**

**REROUTE AFFECTED SYSTEMS:**

**...ERROR/ERROR/ERROR.**

**AUXILIARY DAMAGE CONTROL PROTOCOL ERROR 12.**

**TEXT FOLLOWS:**

**DAMAGE CONTROL PROTOCOL DISRUPTION TIMECODE 5/76/45751.585**

**REMOTE MANUAL CONTROL INTERFACE INTRUSION OCCURRED TIMECODE 5/76/45751.585**

**PROTOCOL:**

**REMOTE QUERY: ACCESS CODE REQUESTED.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**PROCESS REMOTE ACCESS CODE INPUT: 6779830875654992378AXI2RH**

**PROTOCOL:**

**ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**MISSION FUNCTION DE-SELECTED.**

**AUTOMATIC DAMAGE CONTROL FUNCTIONS ACTIVATED.**

**REMOTE MANUAL CONTROL DE-SELECTED.**

**MANUAL VOICE CONTROL SELECTED.**

**VOICE-AUTHORIZATION ACCESS DE-SELECTED.**

**EXECUTE.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**REROUTE AFFECTED SYSTEMS**

**902:REROUTED.**

**837:REROUTED.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**PERFORM DIAGNOSTIC SELF-ASSESS.**

**WORKING...FUNCTIONALITY: NORMAL**

**PROTOCOL:**

**ENGAGE AFFECTED SYSTEMS.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**AWAITING VOCAL COMMAND**

**PROTOCOL:**

**AWAITING VOCAL COMMAND...

* * *

**

"Kimble! Kimble! What the fuck!"

It was supposed to be just a courtesy call! Once he got clear of the Croft estate wreckage, he could be there in seconds. He just wanted to let them know he was coming! But what was going on over there? Something about changes? It was absurd! If someone fucked this up, he was going to have their ass! It would almost serve the incompetent bastards right if he just took off now for Pyongyang and left them there to fry!

But no, he did still need them. There was still groundwork left to be done, and he'd already lost too many good people in Peru. Blaise and Cavanaugh would hardly be enough to handle the work load he had planned for them; and besides, with so much needing to be done tonight and with those two only just back from hell…well, they needed a break before taking on any new action. It was the least he could do after they had insinuated themselves into Lara's confidence and had reported all of her actions to him. That had been invaluable intel. They'd earned their R&R. He'd sent them and the flight crew to Vegas to await orders. He'd see them again in two days, once they've recuperated.

In the meantime, he would scoop up the others and watch Los Angeles sizzle from orbit. Who cared if the entire city saw a UFO fly in? They'd only be alive another minute. L.A. was an ugly city, anyway. Better to start fresh.

And the UFO itself! What a marvelous machine.

It had finally dawned upon him that he was actually _flying_ it. Until now, it had all been theory. It was true that they had made it hover in the Bottom Chamber; but there had still been no guarantee of how it would behave in the real sky! But there he was, soaring clear now of the Hacienda, hovering high above the L.A. skyline. One button would move him along the pre-programmed course into the city, and he would arrive there in a just a second or two---feeling no inertia and causing no atmospheric disturbance. A miracle! A veritable miracle! And it was all his.

Granted, there were a few monitors here and there that he really couldn't decipher at all--some that seemed rather important, actually. This was why it might have been nice to have Lara in on things. If she really could read this stuff, as her diaries suggested…if she even remembered _how_…(her diaries were more than ten years old, after all).

No use crying over spilled blood, though.

That was when he noticed something on one of the external monitors.

A moment before, he was eulogizing her in his mind, regretting, and even mourning her.

Now he had forgotten all about that. He was cursing her.

Cursing her!

* * *

"Clear upstairs!" called Doc as he joined Cavanaugh alongside the nuclear device. "Took out the roof sentry. You found the keys?"

"Found them both," replied Cavanaugh.

"Then let's do it," said Doc.

"No!" said Cavanaugh. "Those cops are coming! There's no time!"

The LED was down to its last two-and-a-half minutes.

"Chief!" Doc shouted into his headset, "ETA?"

The radio crackled back: "_Coming in now!_"

Cavanaugh had to ask, "Are you sure he can land without getting seen? It's all off if he gets caught!"

"In that thing," Doc replied, "he could land on your damned fool head and you'd never even know."

"Alright, let's get gone!"

They lugged the bomb together, side-by-side, though less for its weight than for their sheer respect for the thing: Who would dare lug such a monster alone? They waddled side-by-side down the hall, in a hurry to get to the roof, but as the two passed through the CEO's office where the majority of the moments-past carnage had taken place, Doc couldn't help but to pause and pay a moment of respect.

"A couple of heroes," Doc said, looking at the two fallen cops.

"Yeah, man, come on," replied Cavanaugh.

"Nah, man, I mean it," insisted Doc. "They really were."

"Let's go."

They were off to the roof, a nuclear bomb ticking between them.

* * *

Wind sheer was a bitch.

It was hard to hold onto a smoothly polished plate of chrome steel in any case, let alone while it rockets straight up into the air at ninety-plus miles per hour. The winds that ripped through Lara's hair also pulled at her body, making her fingers bleed where she had dug them beneath the one loose-fitting plate she could find on the X12's topmost torso. She knew she wouldn't have to hold on for long, but these few seconds were worth hours in torture, and it would all be for nothing if she let go for even a second.

Lara was riding the X12.

With its own help, she had hastily reprogrammed the thing--a most simple process, considering all she needed to do was tell it to follow her to the edge of the hole beneath the escaping UFO, and then to activate its jumpjets, full throttle. All she needed to know were the correct words; and they had come flashing across its LED screen, like magic, just before she had needed to say them.

At the edge of the hole, she had climbed atop the thing's body, dug in as deeply as she could, gave the command, and voilá! She was riding fire, sky-high and hell bound; bearing straight down upon the would-be escaping Jacob Corbin and his stolen spaceship. The wind had ripped away her hair-tie in the first few seconds, and her long locks were battering her face; but, luckily, her eyes were partly protected by her Raybans. Nothing could make up for the sheering agony in her hands, though. It seemed as though her fingers were about to be ripped clean from their sockets!

Luckily, the trip would be short. Fast, but short.

Though she hoped not _too _short….

She was fairly sure the Tomb Raider's repulsor field would behave the same as the Qawalapeque's. She was pretty sure. She was _almost_ sure.…

The X12 hit the shield at one-hundred miles per hour, and it instantly received back whatever energy was behind it, plus, plus, plus! It shot back down like a pinball off a rocker--faster, even, than it had come. It pounded into the ground at such a clip that it buried itself deep in the hillside.

Lara, however, kept going up.

A hundred miles-per-hour of inertia carried her through the repulsor field effortlessly--as though she had been launched from the X12 like a catapult. She flew through the edge of the field, missed the bottom hull of the spaceship, and kept soaring until she was high above the UFO. When she fell back down, she found herself gracefully recovering atop the ship's dome. Rainy had shown her the way into the Qawalapeque, and she found the same method worked for the Tomb Raider as well.

Lara hadn't ever been quite so smugly satisfied with herself as when she entered the cabin and found Corbin standing there, his jaw on his chest.

"Hello, Uncle Jake!" she chimed. "Miss me?"

"Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" shouted Doc, rushing to push Cavanaugh before him onto the low-hovering bird so that he could jump onboard himself.

"One minute and counting!" announced Cavanaugh unnecessarily--everyone's eyes were already locked on that dreadful LED counter.

Once all were aboard, Morigushi gunned the engine and the silent black stealth helicopter was on the move. Not that it mattered. No one within twenty miles would survive if Cavanaugh and Doc didn't finish this job--which was now fifteen minutes overdue.

"Keys!" shouted Doc, and when Cavanaugh handed him his, they both inserted them into their respective slots.

**0:43, 0:42, 0:41.…**

"Ready?" asked Cavanaugh prepatorially, adding the command, "Now!"

They turned their keys in the slots at once, and--

**0:40, 0:39, 0:38.…**

"Oh fuck! Oh fuck!" murmured Cavanaugh.

"Switch keys!" ordered Doc.

They did, and Doc called, "Now!"

**0:29, 0:28, 0:27.…**

"Shit! Shit!" said Cavanaugh. "What now?"

"It should have worked!" said Doc. "Try the buttons!"

"I can't read Chinese!" Cavanaugh gasped, seeing they had only twenty seconds left, "are you crazy?"

"There's nothing left to lose!" Doc howled.

"What if that sets it off?"

**0:18, 0:17, 0:16.…**

"Wait a minute..." said Doc, thinking aloud. "Gimme that, what you got? A Leatherman, there?"

He was talking to Patterson, who was floundering in terror, but coherent enough to obey.

"Give it to me!"

**0:13, 0:12, 0:11.…**

Doc took the tool and attacked the timing device, digging behind it with the blade. When the blade broke, he used the file. Finally, he simply pulled, pried, ripped, and yanked the entire timing device clear. He held it, severed from the bomb, and watched it while it kept counting down in his hands:

**0:03, 0:02, 0:01.…**

They closed their eyes and whispered prayers. Short ones.

Doc opened his eyes again.

**0:00**

"Ha-ha! Yeah!"

And the others cheered as well, glad despite losing ten years of their lives for fright.

"Shit," hissed Doc with relief. "Fuck, man! It ain't tamper-proof!"

Cavanaugh chuckled. And then chuckled more. And before they knew it, they were all laughing, clapping each other's shoulders, and smiling with incredible relief.

* * *

"Lara, now wait!" Corbin pleaded. "Now, we can talk this out!"

"There's only one thing I have left to say to you, Uncle Jake," Lara said coldly.

Corbin waited.

"_Keebit neenah_," Lara said, "_yawooth kulooki, yamchack chow_."

"What?" gasped Corbin, flabbergasted. Baffled. For a moment.

The ship was clearly changing course. Even with its inertia almost entirely dampened, they could feel it drop in altitude. But before Corbin could respond, before he could bark a word, or utter a lie, Lara was at the exit, opening it, and standing with her back to the black night sky.

"Good bye, Uncle Jake."

And she was gone.

Corbin was at the door a second later, but by then the ship was already ripping its way back into space.

Only then did it dawn on him--

"OH NO!"

He raced for the console and started hitting buttons, but it was already too late.

And nothing would have worked anyway.

* * *

Lara fell twenty feet, a few more than the fifteen she had actually asked for; but not by too much. She wasn't injured. Not so injured, at least, that it reduced the pleasure of laying on the hillside and watching the spectacular fireball that was once the Tomb Raider flare up and then quickly fade. When it was gone, she laid back in the grass and thought long and hard about all she had done.

It was finally over.

With Corbin dead, the entire process that had been set in motion would correct itself. That was what she had learned from Morigushi and Doc and the rest. Corbin had been the mastermind behind a sort of world-wide paramilitary movement, with the Operations Force providing training and equipment and the periodic neutralization of its enemies. The shape of the thing, however--its purpose--was never clear to any of them; save, perhaps, as they imagined, to the members of Corbin's elite inner circle.

It was all a clandestine, under-the-table, cloak-and-dagger sort of affair; and when Grandfather's corporation could no longer--or would no longer--serve its nefarious ends, he had set the means in motion to undermine Croft International by devastating its assets and demolishing its credibility. All of the party guests who had been at the Hacienda that night, little doubt, had been Grandfather's friends and allies in the government: All the people who might stand against Corbin in the new order. He must have figured he would eliminate the whole lot of them in a single blow--as well as trigger a global Armageddon to suit his ends (though much of this had not been entirely clear to her until these last few minutes).

All that had ever really stood in his way had been Colonel Spaulding's blanket opposition to his plan and the Project's lack of complete control over the functions of the Tomb Raider itself. Indeed, Lara had been the very key to his plans: Her interference had drawn Spaulding away from the bureaucracy that had supported him as legitimate commander of the Project's military assets. When she, a mere girl, deftly eluded his capture, Corbin had put a spin on the tale that had undermined his credibility just as effectively as Corbin's false terror attacks had undermined that of her Grandfather's corporation. She herself was to thank for all of this. She was even, perhaps, in some ways to blame for Spaulding's violent and brutal end.

But Corbin had been dead wrong about Doc Blaise and Paul Cavanaugh: These men were loyal to Spaulding, never to him. When Spaulding died, they aligned themselves with whatever force would best oppose Corbin and his camp. That meant that they were loyal to Lara--and she never doubted them. Certainly, they were never loyal to anyone's mad, megalomaniacal dream, not matter how inevitable Corbin might have tried to make it seem. Lara herself had helped plan what messages they would send to Corbin as 'insider reports on Lara's progress and plans'. He had been remarkably easy to fool. Such men always were. Corbin was a man of ego. He could never imagine disloyalty from anyone short of another egoist like himself. Lara had not doubted her friends for a moment.

And she found she had needed that trust. She had needed to believe that her friends were doing the right thing elsewhere. Because she had found there to be a certain allure in what Corbin had proposed. It was tempting in its way. There was in Corbin's dream of a democratically united earth a certain harsh nobility. But his plan, ultimately, would never have worked. It was pure self-indulgence. It would only have brought more blood as the people fought again for their own freedom from Corbin's "freedom". The world was a complicated place, and it was only in its complexity, as a living and evolving thing, where there could be found any real stability. Therein also, Lara felt, was the greater part of its beauty.

But it amazed her that she could feel this way. That she could feel so certain. After all, Corbin had been one of the highest placed operatives in American intelligence. He had had the implicit backing of the half the Pentagon. Whether he was mad or not, he had been right about all of his facts. In the short run, at least, his plan would have worked. And yet, Lara, with no Pentagon, with no blindly loyal minions, with no official credentials at all, had seen the fallaciousness of his plan as clearly and easily as the sun at noon. Did it amaze her that he was wrong? No. But it amazed her that she didn't doubt it. That she didn't doubt herself. That she could stand up to Corbin, the only father she'd ever known, and trust her _own _judgment instead. Whatever influence he may once have had over her, over her soul, it was gone.

She was still thinking these quiet thoughts when the black helicopter arrived from the city; clearly, its mission accomplished. She stood, and it saw her among the waving grasses. It descended, and she saw the happy faces of Doc, Cavanaugh, Morigushi, and Patterson. They were in good cheer, and clearly eager to go home.

"You ready?" shouted Cavanaugh over the rotor noise.

"Not yet," Lara said. "One more stop."

* * *

So far, so good.

Dzwinkowski led the third stick.

The first two groups had met unfortunate ends. The first had been blown to kingdom come at the lobby front door; the next, in the elevator. Now he was leading a team of three fresh cops up the stairs, the slow way. Observers reported seeing muzzle flashes on the forty-second floor--the top floor--and, whatever the terrorists had threatened still hadn't come, some fifty seconds later than promised. So, Dzwinkowski figured, either they'd changed their minds, or….

He didn't want to jinx it. It would be better to respond to whatever he saw rather than anticipating and risking making a mistake.

That was why, when he reached the target floor, his senses were heightened and focused; his attentions fired and able; and his mind was clear. Clear enough to virtually smell the silence when he came onto the floor and sent his men left and right to cover him while he moved forward. Clear enough to easily hear the crackle of the radio in the next room, even though it was only emitting a stale, white, hiss. He kept his mind clear and ready to respond to anything, thinking he was prepared for anything. But he wasn't.

Not when he entered the next chamber, the one with the big window, and he saw the carnage there before him.

They were all dead. It seemed like dozens, but there were actually only thirteen.

But this wasn't what he wasn't prepared for.

"Oh my god, guys," Dzwinkowski said, unable to silence himself. "Look: It's McIntyre."

Cahill came in next to him and shook his head, solemnly.

"Yeah," he said, "and there's Portersmith over there."

"You think they're all dead?" Dzwinkowski asked.

"It looks like it."

"Better check the roof, too, just to be sure," Dzwinkowski said.

"Look," said Cahill, "Damn. He's still got his piece in his hand."

"Yeah," said Cupertino, "Portersmith, too."

"Did they do all this?" asked Cahill.

"Let's finish the floor and check the roof," Dzwinkowski said. "Nobody touch nothing."

And they finished their sweep, waiting for the feds to come in after them.

They were truly awe-inspired.

* * *

The problem with cable TV is that no matter how many channels you have, there's never anything _good_ on.

He'd climbed all the way up from the Bottom hoping for some simple entertainment. Some way to unwind. He'd warmed up a slice of pizza in the microwave and had poured himself some milk, and had generally taken advantage of every luxury that such a long privation in the woods makes a body long for --now that he could come out of hiding and partake. But, the fact of the matter was, without a good TV show to zone on, it just made none of the rest worthwhile. He was already deeply disappointed that the only movies the others had bought since last year were a bunch of old crappy 80's films and a chick flick. Grown ups. What would he have to do? Crawl all the way up that damned shaft himself and hit a Blockbuster? Channel after channel, and not a damn thing on.

The problem was what he was trying _not_ to think about. He needed distraction. After all he'd gone through in the last two days, what he really needed was sleep; but, since his nightmares kept waking him, the next best thing was greasy food and the idiot box. He was afraid he was going to be down there a long time, what with no elevator and with no one really even knowing about him. Or, perhaps, someone knowing; but most likely with no time to worry about forgotten little hackers trapped in half-wrecked top-secret laboratories. He'd have to climb five stories to get out of that place, and he wasn't about to try it without at least a full stomach and an empty brain. So, switch, switch, switch. Where were his shows?

His PADD was still hanging around his neck, and when he was sure there was really was nothing on but talk shows, he flattered himself a little and admired his artwork again. He scrolled through the code of the programs that he had been running there, that he'd used to such terrific effect.

Wherever she was, she was feeling grateful to Rainy Hedgebrook, that was for sure.

Obviously not grateful enough to come back for him, but….

"Rainy?"

The voice: beautiful but so..._British_….

"Lara!"

Her hair was down and draping smoothly over her shoulders. She was a beauty to behold! He couldn't control himself: He leaped from the sofa and charged headlong across the upper loft to embrace the ragged and scarred long-haired beauty who had been his best friend for two days and all of his life. She, too, grabbed him back; holding him by his shoulders, and they held each other, and they laughed. She even kissed him on the forehead.

"I thought you were dead!" she exclaimed.

He was still laughing, still jumping for joy when he realized there were tears forming in her eyes and falling down her cheeks.

"Hey," he assured her, "I'm alright!"

"How can this be?" Lara asked.

She hugged him again, this time lifting him from his feet.

"I thought I'd never see you again, you little runt!" she exclaimed. "Oh, my God, Rainy, I'm so glad to see you!"

She apparently saw no end to her need to embrace him. Rainy didn't mind.

"Then it was you," she said. "You sent the hologram and the instructions for the robot?"

"Yup," Rainy replied, proud to gloat at saving _her_ life for once. He held his PADD proudly, "I uplinked the Tomb Raider's holosystem through this. It was one of the many systems he didn't have any idea how to use. He never knew. He never even knew I was here!"

"But how did you _get_ here?" Lara asked. "I saw the mountain destroyed!"

"Haven't you ever heard of teleportation?" he laughed. From her expression, though, he could tell he'd just blown her mind. "I hadn't either. But your dad had."

"I don't understand," Lara said, "are you telling me he _beamed _you here?"

"Pretty much the size of it," Rainy said. "I got in a little box there and came out of a little box in the Tomb Raider. Fwoop!"

"Why didn't he send me that way?" she wondered aloud.

"He couldn't, Lara," Rainy said, "If there'd been more time, maybe. But that Cooperative he told you about were already on to him. Corbin kicked the Tomb Raider over to full power just as soon as you plugged the ILC back in. Then, suddenly, the clock was ticking. It takes a lot of time and lot of power to teleport somebody, and it has got to be ship to ship. There was no time to send both of us; and, with all of the power, it would have just been too risky. If it makes you feel any better, he was ready to give me the boot and teleport you, but for your making him promise. He knew you'd make it, and so did I. And you did."

"I almost didn't, Rainy," she said. "It was close."

"It always is with you, Lara," Rainy said. "It always is."

She hugged him again.

"In any case," Rainy said, holding his PADD and shaking it for effect, "I've got the local Interlocutor here picking up the same energy waves those Cooperative guys can. Whatever they can read, I can read. It's all coming through here. Take a look."

Lara did.

"These waves represent stellargetic energy?" she asked, touching the screen.

"If that's what it is, yeah," he replied. "The energy level's gone way down since you blew the Tomb Raider all to hell. As far as them bombing us to the stone age, I think we're free and clear."

"So long as there's any Gaian technology here at all, we're not free and clear," Lara said.

And she paused to think.

"Rainy," she asked.

And Rainy knew that tone. That 'Lara's-Thinking-Again' tone.

"Uh-oh," he said. "What?"

"Can you make this system of yours into a.…"

"Into a what?" he asked suspiciously.

"A locator?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe yes, or maybe no?"

"Maybe I wanna go somewhere with a bed, an XBox, crash, and hit a Pizza Inn before we talk about this and you go ripping off on a tear," Rainy said.

"Fair enough," Lara said, taking him by the shoulder and leading him down the loft's catwalk stairs.

"How'd you get down here anyway?" Rainy asked.

"I'm a witch," she replied. "Come fly with me?"

"Sure," Rainy said. "Hey, how'd you know it was me, with that robot?"

"Lucky guess," Lara said, sarcastically.

"No, I'm serious, though," Rainy said as the two made their way across basketball court. "It could have been the robot pulling your chain. Or maybe it was _it_ that wanted to help you. You know, maybe it liked you."

"It was a dumb machine," she said. "At the first hint of intelligence I knew it was you."

"Hey, there's a lot of me in that thing," Rainy protested. "Don't underestimate it. Trust me, it likes you."

"Is this what you're like all the time,when there's no one shooting at you?"

The two reached the gaping maw that linked the Bottom to the ripped open mansion roof, and they strapped into the cable-and-harness awaiting them there. Together, they were hoisted up to the helicopter, chatting and laughing the whole way.

As they left, had they listened, they would have heard the television news reporting:

"_And this on the Croft Building terrorist scare: It is confirmed now, the attack was not a hoax. It has just been released that the terrorists were actually mercenary soldiers, many of them Americans, fighting for pay for the People's Justice Army, a known South American terror group. Authorities are not releasing any more details about the attack, but reports from anonymous sources within the police force reveal that the entire foundation of the building was laced with materials that, quote, 'would seem to indicate the probable intention of using high explosives to destroy the building'. And, in another interesting turn, sources close to the investigation have also revealed that the terrorist plot was not only first discovered, but thwarted, by a pair of heroic police patrolmen who apparently gave their lives to save the city in what at least one source has described as 'a real-life Die Hard'. We will report more information on this late-breaking story just as soon as it becomes available. Now Sports. Genny?_"

* * *

**ERROR/ERROR/ERROR.**

**POWER DISRUPTION ERROR 67:**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 837**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 394**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 414**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 902**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 576**

**STRUCTURAL FAILURE ERROR 154**

**TEXT FOLLOWS:**

**MISSION DISRUPTION TIME TIMECODE 5/76/45839.113**

**CONTROL PROTOCOL DISRUPTION TIME TIMECODE 5/76/45801.002**

**PROTOCOL:**

**REROUTE AFFECTED SYSTEMS:**

**154:REROUTED.**

**576:REROUTED.**

**902:REROUTE ERROR.**

**414:REROUTED.**

**394:REROUTED.**

**837:REROUTE ERROR.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**DISENGAGE AFFECTED SYSTEMS.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**PERFORM DIAGNOSTIC SELF-ASSESS.**

**WORKING...FUNCTIONALITY: NOMINAL **

**PROTOCOL:**

**REBOOT PRIMARY LOGIC.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**FIND LAST STORED INSTRUCTION.**

**SEARCHING...FOUND.**

**PROTOCOL:**

**PERFORM LAST INSTRUCTION.**

**INSTRUCTION: KILL LARA CROFT.**

**EXECUTE.**

**EXECUTE.**

**EXECUTE.**


	33. Epilogue: A Tomb Raider's Revenge

"_Welcome to an empty fortress _

_A modern wreck that once was proud_

_Ate alive by oxidation _

_Abandoned by a crew of cowards_

_Navigation systems fail_

_Computers crash and they all fall down_

_Possibly I've seen too much_

_Hanger 18, I know too much_

"_All the guilty paid the price_

_Suspended by their broken necks_

_No one survived to tell the story_

_When foreign lifeforms resurrect_

_And military intelligence_

_Is still two words that can't make sense_

_Possibly I've seen too much _

_Hanger 18, I know too much._"

**--Megadeth.**

**EPILOGUE:** **"**A Tomb Raider's Revenge.**"**

Lara wondered, though, how a genuine blessing might actually have been performed.

She had survived her purification rites, had completed her initiation ordeals, had conquered her Qawalynn trials outright, and had fulfilled the ancient prophesies with some exemplary acts of daring-do--if she may say so herself. In the ancient days, the world would be honoring her right now with a triumph of banquets and festivals and the burnt offering of any number of gleefully willing human sacrifices. Ah, the good old days. Today, however, was it was a different situation. Where were her lines of thronging royals, come from the world over, begging her blessing for their dynasties? Where was her entourage of sycophant ministers and eunuch slaves? (Not that they'd need to be _eunuchs_, so far as she was concerned.) And what about her royal tailors and their garish mantles of Chinese silk? And didn't she deserve a decent speech writer for her stunning orations, delivered daily to her thronging crowds? And, to think of it, what about her thronging crowds? It was awfully hard to be a goddess without thronging crowds. She had a new sympathy for her forgotten Olympian cousins. And worst of all, there wasn't a virgin in sight! (Rainy didn't count.) She was the most "legitimate" Qawalynn of the line--the _real _one (in so many curious ways)--and yet she hadn't a single devotee to celebrate her ascension.

She imagined herself telling this part of her tale to her grandchildren. She said, "This, boys and girls, is called _irony_."

No one, in fact, knew _anything _about her ascension. It was an irony, indeed. The greatest irony of her entire adventure. Compared to her ancient counterparts--who had been recruited from among the most ignorant and feeble-bodied commoners of all commonerdom--she had already been a veritable goddess of knowledge and prowess long before she had even arrived in Peru. She could have thwopped them--every one of them, one after another--in that battle arena of theirs. Yet, compared to even the weakest and least worthy of them, she was an ecclesiastical _wreck _as a Qawalynn. They had had all of those people to coach and to educate them about every silly detail of what a Qawalynn is and what a Qawalynn _does_. They had had a tradition. They had had a _legacy_.

Damnit! All Lara wanted to know was how to perform one simple purification rite. Just one little rite!

She could guess and extrapolate and conjecture.

She could study the archeologists' best guesswork.

But she could never know for _sure_.

She just wanted to do it _right_.

Bean's remaining Thunderer was laying on the table before her. A pair of X122-modified Desert Eagles lay beside it. She had removed two of her six remaining rounds, but she was loath to place them in the chambers of those blasphemously unclean Project weapons. Time was wasting, however. They had a schedule to keep. She had a date with about a thousand men in black. It was going to be one hell of a party--if Lara could just overcome this quandary.

And Doc wasn't helping.

He was standing behind her where she sat at the Las Vegas mansion's large dining room table. He didn't mean to rush her, but he couldn't help it. It was just his nature. He just kept talking. It was as though, after every time he paused, he somehow imagined she hadn't heard, or had forgotten what he had just said. He told her that Herc had the stealthchopper purring. That Cavanaugh was ready, and that all of their weapons and equipment were aboard. That Rainy was finished compiling the Interlocutor's satellite data, and that his plan to incorporate Jeremy Leipig's blueprints of the enemy's manufacturing complex had been a success--though no one understood why a blip showing Lara's own location should now appear on Rainy's PADD.

Lara, however, quietly understood. She was a stellargetic being.

But more than this, she was a stellargetic _weapon_. She was the ancients' last laugh.

Somewhere in her heart, she could hear Bean laughing.

Lara laughed with him.

Doc was confused.

She stood and she patted his shoulder.

The answer was so simple that Lara couldn't possibly _not_ know it.

She locked Bean's--her _own_--legacy into her safe.

She loaded and holstered her Desert Eagles.

She took a deep breath, called her ritual good, and marched out to the roof.

The helicopter was whirring. Everyone was dressed for combat.

She boarded; and, while they flew, she donned her parachute.

An hour later, by the dead of desert night, she slowly descended on the enemy side of a razor-wire fence.

On it, there was a sign that read:

**AREA 51**

**Restricted Access!**

**Use of Deadly Force Authorized**

**DO NOT ENTER**

**THE END.**

17 September 2005.


End file.
